


the war can't touch us here

by andibeth82



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Identity Issues, Pre-Civil War (Marvel), Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 12:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6656962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's not wearing any tac gear, and he looks like he does on any normal day they’d hang out, or any day she’d come to the farm and drink tea with Laura on the porch. He looks homey, regular, the scars on his face hidden by the age lines that have become more prominent over the years, his leather jacket fitting snugly over his grey t-shirt, rumpled hair and ripped jeans and bare feet with the toe that’s slightly crooked from being broken a few years ago. </p><p>It’s the way Natasha decides she wants to remember him, if this all goes to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the war can't touch us here

**Author's Note:**

> So, I started this sometime during the trailers that were showing Clint and Nat's fight, intending it to be a "Clint gets out of retirement" fic. It kind of morphed into an identity fic centered on Natasha, that played on Clint and Nat's history. And then it got long, and I'm basically throwing this into the world before CA:CW comes out and josses everything we've imagined so far and everything I'VE imagined so far. There are no real spoilers here except for what's been implied in trailers and interviews, mixed in with the canon of AoU.
> 
> Extra thanks to gecko for speed beta skills on a deadline. Title stolen from Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

She watches him run, watches the ball of fire send orange flames into the sky, watches the way he jerks and twists, every inch of his limbs fluid in a movement that she recognizes, a dance that should be crude and strange but instead looks like a grand ballet.

She watches him run, and it doesn’t feel that different from so long ago.

 

* * *

 

**PART I**

Natasha Romanov was born in a war.

Or at least, that’s what the fables say. They whisper about the baby girl with hair like fire, born out of the flames; she has, from the first time she learned to speak, always put herself first and she has never _not_ known sacrifice at the expense of others.

That changes when she meets the boy.

It starts in Budapest. Budapest is cold and Budapest is unforgiving, but he is probably more unforgiving than she might be. They’ve ended up on top of each other after days of tracking and what feels like an even longer stretch of fighting, and she’s finally bested him after getting a jab to the side of his head that knocks him out enough for her to pin his body to the ground. She slams her gun into the side of his temple and when he comes to, she can practically see him trying to figure out what’s happened.

“Cognitive recalibration,” she says lightly, thinking of how good the pull of the trigger is going to feel when she kills one of America’s finest. “I hit you really hard in the head.”

“Thanks,” he mutters, sagging underneath her hold in defeat. She wants to laugh at the response, at the fact that someone is staring death in the face and apparently isn’t worried about it, because it’s what _she_ would do. But then again, he’s not her. No one is.

“I don’t have anything for you,” he manages after another pause and it takes her a moment to understand what he means.

“I don’t need your information.” Natasha smiles, knowing he can see every single one of her gleaming white teeth with their faces this close. “I’m going to kill you, anyway.”

He meets her eyes and then squeezes his own shut, screwing his face into a grimace. “Do it,” he says, and she’s caught off guard by the fact he’s not even going to try to fight his fate. She’s seen him in combat and she knows he stands a good chance against her, if he were to give himself the opportunity.

“Do you want to die?” She finds herself asking the question curiously, keeping the muzzle of the gun pressed tightly to his head. Her target opens one eye.

“Who the fuck wants to die?” he spits out angrily. “Just get it over with so my wife knows I didn’t suffer. I’m already in enough pain with you sitting on me.”

She’s taken aback by that -- the people who sent her on this mission had told her that he was dangerous, that he was tactical, and that he was on the hunt to kill her. But they hadn’t told her he had a _wife_ and she finds herself startled at how much she’s affected by the information. He’s certainly not the first person she’s shoved aside her morality for, or the first person she’s killed with the knowledge that they had a family of some kind.

There’s movement in front of her, and Natasha catches sight of a pedestrian walking calmly into the lobby of a large building a few blocks away. She makes a split second decision in her head, one that she hopes she won’t regret.

“Run,” she says, still not moving. He finds her eyes again, clearly confused.

“What?”

“ _Run_ ,” she says as she gets up, sprinting away and taking her own cover, trusting he’ll be smart enough to realize what she means -- and if not, well, he’d be as good as dead, anyway. The building explodes suddenly, showering the city with fire and ruins and she crawls away from the embers and debris while she watches him limp off, noticing the way he moves. It’s the same way she moves, a fluid hurried gait with all the agility of a lion and all the stealth of a snake.

Like everything that makes someone a spy.

 

* * *

 

Maria Hill meets her at a cafe in the heart of SoHo on a chilly and damp day in the middle of May, a day that feels more like fall than spring.

“I need you to go to Iowa,” she says after ordering a cappuccino, and Natasha’s not surprised that there’s no formal small talk to pepper the conversation. “The government is moving forward with the Accords, and we don’t have much time. Cap is already too suspicious, and he’s going to move on Stark soon if we don’t get this under control.”

Natasha sighs, taking off her sunglasses and folding them carefully. “He hasn’t been out in the field in over a year, you know.”

“I know,” Maria answers icily. “And rather than send Cap or Maximoff or myself to appeal for the state of our nation and remind him of his _job_ , I’m sending his partner and his best friend to do it. Again.” She looks at Natasha pointedly, and Natasha closes her eyes.

“I can’t promise he’ll come,” she says, though even as she says the words, she knows they’re a lie. Clint will grumble and he’ll hate it, but he’ll come, especially if Wanda’s fighting with them. Maria doesn’t answer, looking down at her half-filled coffee cup.

“You do what you have to do, Romanoff,” she says before she passes her a five dollar bill. Natasha’s spy instincts have her scanning it for a hidden message before she glances up and realizes that Maria is simply giving her money for the bill, which makes her feel a little more at ease. In response, she hits a few buttons on her cell phone and slides it across the table. Maria looks down and starts swiping through Natasha’s photos, looking through the many baby pictures of Nathaniel Pietro Barton.

“His kid is cute.”

“I know,” Natasha admits as Maria gives the phone back. She puts it in her pocket. “But I’m probably biased, considering they named it after me and all.”

Maria purses her lips, looking a little sad at Natasha’s words. “He can have a few days, if he wants,” she says finally. “But no more than that. We need him back. The last thing I want is to have Rogers breaking down that door and freaking out his family again.”

Natasha nods in understanding and gets up, pocketing the phone, leaving the money and Maria behind.

 

***

 

Natasha doesn’t bother knocking before she enters the house on the farm, but she thinks maybe she should have, considering the sight that greets her is one that makes her want to scream and flee all at once: Clint standing in the middle of the living room dangling a giggling Nathaniel upside down while making airplane noises, Lila egging him on by clapping hysterically.

“Hey,” Clint says in surprise, straightening up and diverting his attention when the door opens. He hastily swoops Nate upwards so that he’s no longer hanging upside down and Lila snaps her head up, smiling widely when her eyes make their way to the front of the room.

“Auntie Nat!”

Natasha steps back carefully as Lila rushes into her arms, allowing herself space to pick up the small girl as she secures her gently.

“Daddy didn’t tell me you were coming!”

“Daddy didn’t know she was coming,” Clint says skeptically and a little warily, and Natasha catches his eye. In the pause that comes after, Nate immediately starts to wail.

“Oh, come on. You were doing so good,” Clint mutters as he starts bouncing the baby against his hip. Natasha winces, suddenly feeling uncomfortable about her intrusive entrance.

“Wasn’t me, was it?”

“His favorite namesake?” Clint shakes his head. “Nah, he was due for it at some point. I just hoped we were gonna get lucky today. I should try to put him down.”

“I can help,” Natasha offers and Clint stares at her for a little too long before nodding slowly.

“Yeah, sure.” He waves his hand towards the kitchen. “If you want coffee, there’s still half a pot leftover from breakfast.”

Natasha nods back, moving into the kitchen with Lila still in her arms. She attempts to wrangle a mug from the drying rack while Lila tugs at her hair, fists of curly red obscuring her vision.

“Nat?”

Natasha turns around in the middle of putting Lila down to find Laura standing behind her, damp hair stretching down to her shoulders, tangled in a way that indicates she must have just come from the shower.

“Hey,” Natasha says a little weakly, offering a small smile while glancing back down at Lila, who wanders back to the living room. “Thought I’d drop in.”

Laura’s eyebrow knits in concern and Natasha knows why, because despite her place at the farm, Natasha doesn’t just _drop in_. But then Laura’s smiling, moving forward and embracing her tightly.

“I missed you. What are you doing here?”

Natasha runs her teeth over her bottom lip as she pulls away from the hug. She reaches for the coffee pot, pouring a healthy amount into the mug she’s procured – her favorite cup and the designated one she uses when she’s here, a pastel-colored ceramic mug with a fading sun and moon on the side. When she turns back, Laura’s looking at her with a pale face.

“ _Oh_.”

“Laura --”

“Does he know?”

 _That I’m here, or that I’ve come to take him away from all of this?_ Natasha considers the questions as she sips her drink.

“Yes,” she says, deciding to answer both of Laura’s concerns at once. She knows that if Clint hasn’t already picked up on her seemingly random appearance, he would figure it out as soon as he let himself think about it.

Laura takes a long breath, inhaling and exhaling through her nose in a reaction Natasha’s come to recognize as a measure of trying to keep herself calm. “We just had breakfast, if you’re hungry. There’s probably still some bacon left.”

“And coffee,” Natasha says, looking down at her mug. “Thanks.” She walks over to the fridge, instantly comforted by the fact that she knows exactly what shelf Laura has put leftovers on, in what Tupperware and in what sized containers. She takes out two small plastic cases and then a dish from the cupboard.

“Also, Clint’s putting Nate down, if you wanted to run upstairs.”

Natasha swallows down a lump in her throat. “I was planning on it,” she says as small footsteps start to pound against the stairs. Natasha has half a second to wonder which Barton kid is about to attack her when Cooper’s mop of hair appears at the edge of her vision.

“I didn’t know Nat was visiting!”

“Decided to surprise you all,” Natasha says, steering the conversation away easily as she opens her arms. Cooper hugs her a little listlessly but Natasha figures she’ll take it; at eleven he still had more sentimentality than most boys his age did, considering the way Natasha knew he latched onto his dad.

“Go see the baby. I’ll finish getting your breakfast together,” Laura says as Cooper takes his place at the table, book in hand. She throws Natasha a gentle smile that Natasha allows herself to take comfort in before she starts up the stairs, approaching Laura and Clint’s bedroom.

“About time,” Clint says as she walks inside, pushing open the half-closed door. He’s sitting on the bed, having dragged the crib over. Nate is stretched out, arms and legs splayed wide in either direction.

“He even sleeps like you,” she chides in an attempt to lighten what she knows is an awkward mood, even though it shouldn’t be, and Natasha hates that it is. The farm is her home and Clint and Laura are her home, and that’s the way it’s been for a long time. If a threat of the end of the world didn’t change that, she’s not going to let the government and potential team divide change that, either.

“Hey, between you and Laura, I’ve learned my lesson by now,” he replies with a small smile as Natasha leans over to peer at the baby.

“Sorry for barging in,” she says quietly when he doesn’t continue, and Clint sighs loudly.

“Is it what I think it is?”

Natasha nods. “Yeah. They need you, Clint.”

Clint looks resigned. “Of course they do. And it’s what I signed up for, right? To be there when I was needed?” He stands, crossing his arms and laughs shortly. “It hasn’t changed in years, so why would it change now?”

Natasha feels herself grow annoyed. “Don’t play that game with me.”

“Don’t play that game with _me_ ,” Clint responds in frustration. “Come on. We both know that you could’ve sent me a message about this or called me. Why are you really here, Tasha?”

Natasha watches him walk to the other side of the room and tries to compose herself before speaking again. “To give you a chance to say goodbye,” she says finally. “To give you the luxury of being able to take off like it’s any other mission. You’re the only one who gets a life outside of this, and I didn’t want to tear you away unnecessarily. Not when it’s been so long.”

Clint’s stopped in front of the window where he stares out at the front lawn, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

“So if not you, which one of us was going to come pluck me away without warning?”

Natasha hesitates. “Probably Cap,” she admits after a pause. “If he didn’t send someone else. Maximoff might’ve been a good candidate, too.”

Clint smiles half-heartedly. “Good thing it was you, then.”

Natasha doesn’t have to ask what he means, because Steve, for all the sympathy that he could muster when it came to sentimental things, wouldn’t have bothered to ease Clint in and out of the decision to get back into the field after so much time away.

“When do they want me to leave?”

Natasha grimaces. “As soon as possible,” she says slowly. “But they’d understand if it was tomorrow or even the next day.”

Clint shakes his head. “I’d rather get it over with,” he says, turning around to face her. “Do it all so I can come home and put this behind me, and then figure out where I want to be.” He pauses. “You still planning to do what we talked about?”

“For as long as you’re alive,” Natasha says resolutely, grabbing his hand. “I’m not exactly looking forward to playing double agent with everyone, but it’s the easiest way to make sure that you’re okay. That _we’re_ okay.”

He smiles faintly and Natasha takes a deep breath.

“Clint.”

Clint blinks. “Yeah.”

“Clint, this is...they’re not…this isn’t like anything we’ve ever dealt with before.”

“Fury said that about Ultron,” says Clint, rubbing his eyes. “And you said that about Loki.”

Natasha swallows. “This is different. Our team is being torn apart with these Accords. And that rivalry could put everyone at risk, if we don’t make them realize what they’re giving up in this fight.”

Clint sighs. “So the world is messed up. Again. And it’s our doing. Again.”

Natasha nods and leans into him, and Nate makes a noise in his crib.

“So, I guess we have to go save it.”

 

***

 

“Look, it’s not my fault they’re pulling me out of retirement. But you know I don’t have a choice.”

“You _do_ have a choice. You said you were done.”

“I said I was taking a step back, Laura. I said I wasn’t going out into the field needlessly all the time. I’m still an Avenger, and I still have a job.”

“No. You said Ultron was it. The last project.”

“I know what I _said_ \--”

The screen door opens and closes with a loud slam as Laura exits the house, stomping angrily to the edge of the porch where the rails are still being repainted. She curls two hands around the peeling beige, fingers digging into the splintering wood, and arches her back in tension.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha says hesitantly from where she’s standing, watching the trees sway back and forth over the sky like brushes over a canvas painting, because it’s all she feels she _can_ say even though she also feels like it’s all she’s said since she arrived. Laura’s quiet for a long time.

“We just finished the invitations for Nate’s first birthday. Yesterday.” There’s a visible crack in her voice. “I didn’t even think about what kind of cake I wanted. I was going to ask him his opinion, because it’s been so long since we’ve had a first birthday celebration. Because he almost missed Lila’s that time he got abducted while you both were in Greece.”

Natasha swallows and then reaches over, touching Laura’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she says again as Laura turns to her with bright eyes.

“I don’t want to be the person who says he can’t go and have this life,” she says. “But he promised he would come home, and that would be the end. No more running around.”

“His friends need him,” Natasha says, unable to help herself. “ _I_ need him.”

Laura presses her lips together as Nathaniel’s quiet cry breaks the mood, like a harsh reminder of everything they’re not saying out loud.

“I know. But I need him, too.”

 

* * *

 

After Budapest, she gets sent to Nicaragua. It’s hot and it’s sweaty and she wishes she were anywhere else, even back in the subterranean temperatures of Russia, because at least that would be better than sweating through layers of undercover clothing in a crowd of people. Her mission is simple: set the bomb, wait until the perfect moment, detonate. There had been four bombings in the area over the past year, and no one would suspect her.

He’s there, because of course he is. She’s aware of his existence because she’s tracked him, and it’s not the sole reason she’s decided to spend some extra time hanging around before finishing the job, but games are fun and she knows he’s worth putting the effort into, because he gives her a run for her money. She moves through the market, the bomb concealed in her small messenger bag, and comes up behind him while he’s browsing a rack of silk scarves at one of the booths in the crowded market.

“How’s the wife?”

He turns around and meets her eyes, his face surprised and fearful all at once. One point for her -- ten, maybe, if she wants to be generous, because he clearly hadn’t realized he was being tracked, even if he wasn’t here to kill her.

“Fine,” he says evenly, moving his gaze back to a row of brightly colored scarves. “You could help me pick out a gift for her, if you want.”

Natasha snorts. “I’m not in the market for gifts that aren’t murders,” she says off-handedly and he laughs.

“No, I guess you’re not. I’m surprised you remember, though. I mean, you were basically about to kill me.”

“I let you go,” she reminds him, though she’s still not sure why. Every single day after that, as much as she’s tried to forget it, she’s found herself settling back on that thought, wondering why she decided not to go through with killing the one person who has ever truly been able to match her.

“You did,” he agrees. “Thanks for that, by the way. I got to celebrate my wife’s birthday.” He goes back to browsing and she’s so thrown off by his comment and nonchalance that she’s not quite sure what to do.

“I’m going to set another bomb,” she says after a moment, her voice casual and cheerful, because this is what she came here for, anyway.“ I’m going to put it right here, under this stand, so that it hits its maximum target range. I’m going to walk away, and then I’m going to detonate it. Right here in this market.”

“So you’re going to kill me for real this time? At least let me make a purchase so I can send this gift home.”

Natasha shakes her head. “No,” she says, because suddenly she realizes she can’t do this to him. “I’m going to tell you to run. So do as I say and forget the damn gift. Run.”

He looks up and meets her eyes, and she finds herself avoiding his gaze. _Just run_ , she thinks. _Because I have about ten seconds to save you and I don’t know if I can if you don’t listen._ She reaches down, pretending to have dropped something, the contents of her bag falling open stealthily. He glances downward and his eyes widen slightly upon seeing the bomb.

 _Did you honestly think I was kidding?_ she thinks as she mentally urges him. _Run_ , _you idiot._

He turns and walks away quickly and Natasha uses the distraction to kick the small bomb under the table of the vendor. She walks away with measured steps and when she knows she’s far enough from the blast zone, she hits the button on the detonator hidden up her sleeve.

She doesn’t bother to wonder if he’s been smart enough to make it out, because she can’t afford to care that much. She had done her job. She had let him go, again. There would be other times. Better times. This, too, would pass.

Natasha turns around to see a world of fire, screams and sirens and billowing black smoke, and in the distance, a figure limping away and running towards freedom.

 

* * *

 

Cooper and Lila are put to bed under the guise of a dark and quiet house that makes Natasha’s skin crawl, because anything and everything now will remind her of Bruce Banner and butterflies and awkward showers and broken barriers -- a safe home no longer the safest home, now that everyone knew the secret only she had taken pride in having. Laura sequesters herself away with Clint in the corner of the kitchen and they lean over the table, passing documents back and forth. Natasha watches out of the corner of her eye from the safety of the couch.

 _I can allow him this_ , she thinks, remembering her conversation with Maria. She wonders if he knows that she doesn’t want this war either, because they’ve done this already -- fought on opposite sides, fought against a world that was trying to tell them they were wrong. They’ve done it both individually and together, and Natasha is realizing that she doesn’t want to fight anymore.

She also knows there’s no way to stop it. They were out of options, and they were out of excuses.

“Is is true?”

Natasha’s startled out of staring blankly at the _Law & Order_ rerun she’s only been half watching. “Is what true?”

Laura’s face is lined with concern. “That you’re going to fight against him.”

Natasha finds herself short of breath, even though she shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d tell Laura, not after all they’d been through.

“Yes,” she admits. “But not really. It’s...it’s just spy stuff.” She brings a leg up and turns to Laura with a sad smile. “You want him safe, right? You want him to come home?”

“I -- of course,” Laura says abruptly. “I just didn’t know that meant you had to be on different sides.”

Natasha looks down, suddenly unable to meet Laura’s eyes. “It’s the best course of action,” she says, and she hates how much she feels like she’s speaking to someone she barely knows as opposed to someone she loves and trusts with her life. “I’m a spy, not a soldier. They expect as much from me.”

 _What do they expect of him?_ Laura doesn’t ask the question out loud but Natasha sees it when she meets her eyes again.

“He’s older, now. Older than he was even a year ago.”

Natasha nods. “Yeah. I know.” Clint wasn’t _old_ by any means, but he was certainly past the age where he could bounce back quickly and not be affected by long battles and stress and broken bones.

“Retirement was good for him. He liked being home and helping out peripherally.”

“I know,” Natasha repeats. _What do you want me to say, Laura? You know I don’t want this, either. But he doesn’t have a choice. You knew he couldn’t just walk away. You knew that after Loki. You knew that after SHIELD fell._

“I want him to leave while the kids are asleep.”

“You --” Natasha pauses, eyeing her. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Laura glances back at the kitchen, where Clint is both cleaning up and mainlining the rest of the coffee that hasn’t been drained from the pot yet. “I don’t want them to know he’s leaving again. That way, when they wake up, I can tell them he’ll be home...and he’ll be home.”

Natasha chews on her bottom lip, because she doesn’t agree with Laura’s decision but she also trusts Laura, and she’s trusted Laura for years. And she knows if Laura really wanted to, she would allow her kids to wake up and ask the pertinent questions and talk to their dad.

“Okay.” Natasha stands and walks into the kitchen, putting a hand on Clint’s shoulder. He turns around with raised eyebrows.

“Clock's ticking,” she says after a moment, when she feels like she can speak. “Hill wants us.”

Clint nods and Natasha knows she doesn’t have to explain what Laura’s told her about leaving.

“Gotta grab my bags. Say bye to the baby. You know.”

She does know. Natasha backs away and lets him walk upstairs, following slowly, reaching the top in time to see him close the door to the master bedroom, light peeking out from underneath. She’ll allow him this, too -- time with his son, time with his wife, time with himself.

Natasha opens the door to Cooper and Lila’s bedrooms carefully, keeping the creaking hinges to a minimum, and tries to memorize the moment -- Lila stretched out in Disney princess blankets with her long hair spilling out over the sheet, Cooper tangled in baseball covers that are growing too short for his gangly eleven-year-old frame. She backs out of the room just as Clint walks out of his own, trading him a silent glance as they switch places.

Natasha sweeps a small hand over Nathaniel’s head, watching the baby sleep restlessly. He’s bigger than he had been even a month ago, a change Natasha remembers seeing in both Cooper and Lila. But with Nathaniel, she had been more aware of the growth process, the shift from a miniature human to a real person. It was as if she was watching someone who was born so innocent lose that innocence little by little, every day. Natasha heads downstairs in time to see Clint and Laura sitting on the couch, Laura pressing one hand to his chest.

 _It hasn’t been enough time_ , Natasha thinks, her chest aching as much as she knows Laura’s probably is. _It’s never enough time_. The world ends and cities fall and it’s never enough _time_ , she just wants someone to give them more _time_.

“It’s his job,” she says as she reaches forward to hug Laura, once Clint’s gotten up. Laura hugs her back, wrapping her arms around Natasha in a death-like grip.

“I know it is.”

Natasha leads them out of the house and towards the quinjet she’s piloted, the one that’s parked and hidden by the tall cluster of trees just outside the perimeter of the farm, the same place that they once landed when everything was robots and drones and monsters.

“Hey, Nat.”

He waits until they’ve taken off to speak and Natasha looks over; Clint’s got his tongue stuck in his cheek but she’s pretty sure it’s not from navigating the quinjet off the ground and into the dusty sky. “Just wondering. About this whole double agent thing you’re planning...what if one day, it’s not just spy stuff?”

Natasha looks out over the windshield of the quinjet and closes her eyes. She sees a highway, flying drones, and she feels a pull of regret in her gut.

“Then I guess one day it’s not just spy stuff.” 

 

* * *

 

They don’t see each other again until six months later, in Vienna.

At that point, Natasha’s blown up parts of London, Jakarta, and France, though she hasn’t truly enjoyed herself. She’s grown bored of going around and murdering senselessly. And she hasn’t seen the archer that has pursued her in far too long.

It had occurred to her somewhere around the tenth bomb she set off that she didn’t even know his name. She knew he was an agent of some kind, that much was evident from his skills and his uniform -- a rogue agent, maybe, one of those freelancers that killed for hire, or maybe someone who was part of a more covert operation. She knew he was sent to kill her by someone, or for someone. She knew he had a _wife_ of all things, and that he had a family, but she had no idea what his name was.

So when she finally traces him to Vienna and spies on him walking into an upscale hotel, she pulls some strings and figures out his room and persuades the bellhop to take a message upstairs, slipping a wad of bills into his pocket while stroking his cheek to sweeten the deal and ensure delivery.

_You. Me. The roof. Midnight._

She’s surprised when the bellhop walks back not five minutes later, handing her another note.

_Which roof? There are dozens._

Her lips curl into a smile as she takes the card, scribbling on the back and placing it on the silver tray.

_You’ll know._

She leaves after that, waits out the rest of the day sunning herself by the gondolas. When it gets dark enough, she sneaks into the hotel and takes the elevator to the top floor, walking the rest of the way via a flight of stairs until she gets to the door that leads to the roof. To her surprise, he’s already waiting there, looking out over the city.

“Told you that you’d figure it out,” she says by way of announcing herself, and he turns slowly.

“Not that hard to figure out.”

She watches him carefully. So far as she can tell, he’s unarmed -- there’s no bow and arrow to be seen -- but she doesn’t buy that he hasn’t got a knife or some other object hidden in the folds of his clothes the same way she does.

“Figured you’d want to keep things close,” he says after a pause. “That’s how you work. Why a roof, though? Why not one of those gondolas in the middle of the water, where we would really be alone?”

“Because I like being hidden in plain sight,” she admits, wondering when in God’s name she decided she actually wanted to be _truthful_ to him. “Also, I hate gondolas. They make me sick if I stay on one too long. And I don’t know your name.”

“Oh.” He blinks. “I thought it was only appropriate to ask my name before you killed me. Or, you know, as I lay dying.”

“I thought about it,” Natasha responds evenly. “But I like to know my targets before I kill them. Especially if they apparently have families.”

“Fair enough,” the man says, walking forward and holding out a hand. “Clint Barton.”

“Clint.” She tries it out, but refuses to take his hand. “It’s okay.”

“Just _okay_?” He raises an eyebrow, dropping his arm. “After chasing me around Europe and sparing my life more than once, I think I’ve earned a little more than _okay_.”

“You _did_ attempt to kill me,” Natasha says nonchalantly.

“ _You_ tried to blow me up! Twice!”

“So, what? Does that make us even?”

Clint -- she has a name now, she can call him _Clint_ \-- shrugs. “You tell me, Natasha.”

So he knows _her_ name. That’s not surprising, considering he was sent to find her and kill her. Natasha looks at the archer in front of her, and then folds her arm over her chest.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

 

* * *

 

As the quinjet lands safely in the grass at the new training facility, Clint turns to Natasha and decides to ask the question that’s been on his mind since they took off.

“Hey.”

When Natasha looks up from the map she’s studying, Clint gestures to the window. “Back at the house, you said Cap would’ve come, if you didn’t.”

Natasha nods, folding the map carefully. “Yeah. Why?”

Clint gives her a sideways glance and fiddles with the now neutral controls. “Do you think that’s cause he wants me on his side? If we split up like you think we will?”

“Probably,” Natasha says after a long pause. “Does that surprise you? I mean, better than me. You’re tactical, he’s tactical. And if he’s your leader, you don’t have to make decisions.”

Clint frowns. “Who said I don’t like making decisions?”

“Really?” Natasha gives him a look. “Lila chooses your movies. Laura chooses your shirts. Cooper chooses your books. And when it comes to big Avengers situations, you haven’t worried about having to make a real choice since you were brainwashed.”

Clint considers this, unsurprised that while _he_ hasn’t paid attention to the meanings behind his actions, _she_ apparently has.

“I made a choice,” he says finally. “When I helped Wanda out in Sokovia and told her to fight.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out of the quinjet, not bothering to wait for Natasha to follow.

“I thought you’d be more tired,” says Steve when he meets him outside the facility. Clint forces out a smile.

“It’s my third kid. I’m kind of used to it. Besides, you’ve heard of coffee, haven’t you?”

Steve smiles thinly. “Good to have you back,” he responds and Clint nods, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah. You seen Maximoff?”

Steve looks a little surprised, but jerks his thumb behind his head. “She just finished training, but you can probably catch her before she heads off for the night.”

“Great.” Clint takes off and pushes his way through the few people leaving the building, slipping inside easily. It’s been at least a year since he’s actually been here, but he knows enough from Skype sessions with Natasha to have some sense of the layout.

“Hey,” he says with a small wave as he enters the space where Wanda is packing up from her session, shoving some towels in her bag.

“Agent Barton?” Wanda double takes in confusion. “I did not know you were back.”

“I’m kind of...not,” he admits, looking around the room. “But I guess there’s a battle call happening, and I was more or less summoned away from board games and cookies and bottles.” He offers a small smile and Wanda gives him a tentative one back, shoving dark hair out of her face.

“I’m glad you came back. Since there will be a war and all.” Her voice is quiet, directed towards the floor, and Clint furrows his brow.

“You know?”

“I hear things,” Wanda says with a small shrug, still not meeting his eyes. “But also, it is not hard to pick up on the real conversations. Not when you have spent a lifetime in the shadows.”

Clint swallows down a lump in his throat and thinks of Laura and his kids. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” he finds himself saying and Wanda laughs quietly.

“Do you think they would have cared enough to bring you back if it was not going to be that bad?” Wanda asks wisely. “I do not even know if I am ready to fight. But I am willing to, now. After all that we went through.”

Clint eyes her carefully, seeing the look of fear mingled with defiance, and thinks of Pietro.

“Well. If we’re gonna fight a war, we’re gonna need a team, right?”

Wanda startles, looking up. “You mean you want to fight with me?”

“Yeah.” Clint nods. “Of course I do. You thought my motivational speech on that rock of a flying city was for nothing? I don’t get people to believe in themselves and then leave them on their own. Just ask Natasha.”

Wanda gives another tentative smile, and Clint puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

 

***

 

“Natasha.”

It’s late, but maybe if she waits long enough, the voice will go away.

“ _Natasha_.”

No dice. No _fucking_ dice.

“What?”

She’s tired, and Sam’s face is the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes. It’s annoying, because she knows she can’t throw a punch at him the same way she would if it was Clint’s face that was bending over her.

Actually, maybe she _could_ throw a punch. Sam could probably take it.

“Meeting,” is all he says, gesturing somewhere behind him. “Stark’s lab.”

Natasha makes a face, getting up off the mat. There are memories of Stark’s lab -- huge, terrifying, Ultron shaped memories -- but she grits her teeth against a response and stands slowly before following him out of the room.

“What’s the big deal?”

Clint meets her halfway down the stairs to the bottom of the facility, a jelly sandwich gripped tightly between the fingers of his right hand. When he offers it out to her, she shakes her head.

“I thought you knew.”

“About a meeting? Your guess is as good as mine.” He falls in step next to her. “Also, since when do you do yoga at nine at night?”

“Since now,” she responds easily. “Since when do you do arrow inventories at nine at night?”

Clint looks away in embarrassment. “Who told you about that?”

“Laura.” Natasha pokes his arm as they continue to walk. “She says you’ve been going off on your own after the kids are in bed and sorting through your gear. But you won’t tell anyone why.”

Clint moves his mouth back and forth and looks down at the ground. “I like to be prepared,” he mumbles and Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“There’s prepared, and then there’s not being able to let go of your job to focus on real life.”

“Yeah, and which one are you?” Clint shoots back.

She wonders if he’s thinking of the same thing that she is -- a rooftop in Prague, an explosion in Budapest, a dinner over blood-red wine in Madrid, under the stars. Instead of answering, she pulls open the heavy door to the lab.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” says Steve and Tony looks up from where he’s been studying a pile of papers.

“God, are you and Barton screwing each other in private again?”

Natasha rolls her eyes, taking in the room -- Steve and Tony and Sam, no Wanda or Rhodey or anyone else, and she wonders why it’s both of _them_ that have been called.

“If that’s what’s going to start our war, quite frankly, I want out.”

“That’s not what’s going to start a war,” says Steve, ignoring Tony’s comment. He throws down a large packet. “ _This_ is.”

“What’s this?” Natasha asks curiously and Steve grimaces.

“The Sokovia Accords, apparently.”

“He’s making a big deal out of nothing,” Tony interjects. “They’re just a bunch of documents.”

“Documents that dictate legal regulations for enhanced people. _Or_ Avengers,” he adds pointedly. “Established by a little group you might remember formerly knowing as the World Security Council.”

“I’d hope I’d remember, considering I infiltrated them,” Natasha responds, glancing over at Sam, who’s sitting silently throughout this whole thing, watching the conversation with a neutral face. She idly wonders why he’s even there, and then wonders if it’s because Steve needs someone physically next to him for support, someone to be his right hand man the same way she often needed Clint to be with her, even if he wasn’t involved in something. Tony, she knew, didn’t tend to need that kind of reassurance.

“And these documents will do what? Put us in our place? Uphold us to punishments set by the law, when it comes to our mistakes?” Clint asks sarcastically with such a spiteful tone that Natasha can’t help but assume he’s thinking of Wanda and her brother.

“ _Control_ us is more like it,” Steve says, crossing his arms. Tony snorts beside him.

“You know, control isn’t always the best way to ensure that no one gets hurt,” he says and Natasha exchanges a glance with Clint.

“Look, I’m all for letting you two duke it out like grown-ups, but I want to know why _we’re_ here,” she says in exasperation.

“To fight,” Steve says at the same time Tony speaks and says, “to stop.” Natasha feels herself grow impatient and annoyed.

“And you want us to, what? Be rebels? Be heroes?” She raises an eyebrow. “It’s been years and sometimes, I can’t tell with you guys.”

Steve gives her a look. “We want to know where you stand,” he says finally. “And more importantly, we want you to know what you’re up against.”

“I _know_ what we’re up against,” Natasha says bluntly as Clint looks down at his hands. She thinks of Laura, and of the farm, and of Wanda. “I know better than anyone else in this room.”

“Do you?” Steve gives her a wary look and Natasha suddenly wants to scream.

“I think you’d be surprised.”

 

* * *

 

“I want to take you to dinner,” Natasha says when they meet the next night on the roof again. Clint raises an eyebrow.

“I’m assuming you take all your pets or conquests out to dinner, then?”

“Before I kill them, yes,” Natasha replies. The funny thing is, she’s not kidding, and she knows he knows that. But she also knows she can say that to him and he won’t be offended, or even worse, scared off.

“Okay,” he agrees, eyeing her. “But a normal dinner, where we pretend we’re normal people. Like a bar or something. No weapons, no costumes, no gear. Definitely no hidden bombs. I’ll come, if you agree to that.”

“I guess I can work with that,” Natasha says. “No pocket knives?”

“No weapons,” Clint repeats firmly. “Besides, we both know we could probably take each other by hand-to-hand combat if it came down to it. I don’t need added stress.”

“You’re probably right,” Natasha says, because she knows he is. “Maybe one day we’ll be able to test that theory.” She lets her lips fold into a playing grin, and Clint rolls his eyes.

“At this point, the only way I’d fight _that_ dirty with someone is if I was forced to. Contrary to popular belief, bomb girl, I’m not a fan of violence.”

“I know,” Natasha says simply. “That’s why you choose to fight with a bow and arrow. I’m not dumb, Agent Barton.”

“Yeah? So why do you set bombs?”

“Because it’s what I’m supposed to do,” Natasha answers although suddenly she’s not so sure of that. It’s always been her motive and her job to kill and kill and kill but now... _now_.

Things are suddenly different, now.

Natasha folds her arms. “Why do you chase assassins?”

“Because it’s what I’m supposed to do,” he shoots back. “Also, for what it’s worth, you’re the only assassin I’m chasing.”

“Really.” Natasha smiles again and Clint shoulders his bow.

“Really. But I’ve been doing this for a long time. There have been people before you, and I’m sure there will be people after you.”

“I’m sure,” Natasha says bluntly. “So what’s your point?”

Clint grins. “The point, Natasha, is don’t flatter yourself.” 

 

* * *

 

Natasha waits until they’ve left the lab a considerable distance behind before she turns around, stopping in her tracks.

“Come to dinner,” she says and Clint gives her a sideways glance.

“Now?”

Natasha shrugs. “It’s not like it’s midnight. We can just grab a drink or something at that bar down the road, if you’re not hungry.”

Clint nods and follows Natasha out the door and to one of the cars parked at the end of the facility’s driveway. Natasha gets in the driver’s seat and they ride in silence until they reach a dive bar off the side of the road, which Natasha is pleased to find is blissfully empty.

“All this laid in a grave,” Clint says after they’ve secured two beers. They slide into a booth, situating themselves across from each other, and Natasha snorts quietly.

“Don’t let Cap’s ideals of the greater good sway you,” she says with a raised brow. “Unless you’re thinking of joining up with him.” When Clint looks up with guilty eyes, Natasha knocks her nails on the table. “Alright. So I guess I’m going with Stark, then.”

“You sure about that?” Clint asks and Natasha shrugs listlessly.

“You knew I was going to have to choose whatever side you didn’t. And you chose Cap.”

“Cap called first,” says Clint a little defensively. “Or he would have. You said so yourself. Besides, I don’t really trust Stark’s thought process. No offense.”

Natasha sighs. “You think I’m choosing Stark because I believe in what he’s talking about when it comes to control? I’m on whatever side you’re _not_ , because I need to be.”

“Yeah.” Clint looks a little wary. “Also, I’m taking Wanda with me. I promised her that whatever ended up happening, she would fight with me.”

“I figured,” Natasha responds and Clint smiles slightly.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Don’t forget, I know you when it comes to picking up strays.” Natasha rubs her foot against his leg. “I am worried, though. I haven’t seen Cap like this since Hydra.”

“Like what?” Clint asks, reaching for his drink.

“Determined. Motivated. Hellbent on making sure people don’t get hurt.” Natasha swallows. “Cap is a soldier through and through, and he’ll never be able to let go of that, especially if the government is involved.”

Clint sits back and rubs a hand across his eyes. “So you’re saying we’re fucked?”

Natasha smiles grimly. “I didn’t say that,” she says, but she knows she might as well have. “I just don’t know what we’re up against. I don’t know what I’m doing, bringing you out of retirement. I don’t --”

“Hey.” Clint reaches his hand forward, placing his palm on top of hers. “I liked retirement, but coming out of it was _my_ decision. I made a commitment to this team and that means I get to choose when and where to fight. I’m fighting for you. I’m fighting for my family.”

“And that’s all well and good, but you’re not twenty-nine anymore,” Natasha says crossly, because she can’t help it. Clint looks hurt.

“I’ve got a few more joints that don’t bend correctly, but I can still outrun and outshoot half of our team on a good day. And you,” he adds. “I don’t think you should be worried about me.”

“I _am_ worried about you,” she retorts. “I can’t help it, Clint. No one...this isn’t Sokovia.”

“No,” says Clint slowly. He picks up his glass. “No, it’s not.”

Natasha follows suit and clinks his glass with her own. He smiles, but she notices the fire has gone out of his eyes.

 

***

 

Four days later, while Natasha is sitting on the roof cleaning her weapons, Clint walks up behind her and sits down.

“Cap wants us to go meet with Ellis in D.C.,” he says, staring out at the skyline. “All of us. There’s gonna be stuff about Sokovia, Wanda...I gotta represent.”

“Oh.” Natasha looks down at her gun, realizing her fingers are suddenly shaking. “But...you’ll be back, right?”

Clint looks uncertain. “I don’t know. Eventually. I don’t know if I can say I’ll be home tonight, though.” He looks at her and she sees what he’s not saying out loud in his eyes: _I might not be home for a long time_.

Natasha swallows hard. “I’ll hold down the fort with Stark.”

“Should be easy enough,” Clint agrees. “Not like you don’t have experience.”

“It’s experience I’d rather not have, if we’re being honest.” Natasha shoves her weapons aside and gets up, regarding him carefully. He’s not wearing any tac gear, and he looks like he does on any normal day they’d hang out, or any day she’d come to the farm and drink tea with Laura on the porch while Cooper and Lila ran around on the grass and Clint pulled weeds in the front yard. He looks homey, regular, the scars on his face hidden by the age lines that have become more prominent over the years, his leather jacket fitting snugly over his grey t-shirt, rumpled hair and ripped jeans and bare feet with the toe that’s slightly crooked from being broken a few years ago. It’s the way she decides she wants to remember him, if this all goes to hell.

“What if --”

“Nat.” He steps forward, running fingers through her hair. “Even if this goes to hell -- even if I don’t see you until I’m on the other side of this war -- we’ll be okay. You don’t have to worry about me, I promise.”

Natasha nods and Clint brings her in for a hug. She feels like her world is ending, and she’s not quite sure why.

“Clint.”

“Hmmm?” He rubs her back as she pulls away, putting her arms on his shoulders, searching his eyes.

“We’re still friends, right?”

“Depends on how hard you hit me,” he teases, kissing her on the cheek. Natasha smiles sadly.

“If you talk to Laura, tell her I say hi? And that I’m okay?”

“Yeah.” Clint rubs a thumb against her cheek and she realizes he’s wiping away a stray tear. “I will. Don’t worry about that. She’ll want to know her favorite redhead is okay.”

“I’m her _only_ redhead,” Natasha reminds him as he starts walking away. She watches him go, and tries to make her heart stop hurting for what she’s already anticipating she’s going to lose.

 

***

 

Unsurprisingly, Rhodey ends up on their side, along with Vision, and Natasha thinks she’d have to have been a fool to think that two of Tony’s closest friends -- both of whom had been with him practically since birth -- would choose differently.

Unsurprisingly, Sam ends up on Steve’s side, along with the man formerly known as Bucky Barnes, and Natasha thinks she’d have to have been a fool to think that two of Steve’s closest friends -- both of whom had been with him when no one else would stand and fight -- would choose differently.

“You’re the odd woman out, Romanoff,” she says to no one in particular as she stands at the window of the facility, watching Vision, Tony and Rhodey form a pow-wow semicircle in the next room over. It would have benefited her, most likely, to be in on the information, but she finds she can’t make herself become involved in whatever they’re talking about. It hurts her head too much.

She’s been taking calls from Clint, who’s been checking in on occasion -- a whispered voicemail from a bathroom in the State Department, a text from a meeting room complete with typos because he’s working his fingers over the keys way too quickly, an encrypted string of letters while undercover. She’s been adding them all up and filing them away, trying to use them to her advantage, trying to forget she’s technically working against him.

 _It’s for the greater good,_ she reminds herself, watching the trio disperse from her perch at the window. Live and serve. It’s not so different than what she had done for most of her life, before she found loyalties to stake her claim in.

“Move out.”

She turns around and meets Tony’s eyes; his gaze is determined and his mouth is set in a straight line.

“What do you mean?”

Tony waves his hand, the gauntlet on his wrist flashing in the harsh overhead light. “I mean, move out. We’re going to fight.”

 

* * *

 

“This is nice,” Clint remarks when he meets Natasha at the restaurant down the block from his hotel. In civilian clothes with no visible weapons, with her hair up and minimal make-up, she looks ordinary and demure and not at all like the girl who he knows is responsible for killing hundreds of people. “To be honest, I still don’t know if you wanted me to show up so you could kill me. You got a bomb hidden in that purse of yours?”

“Come on, Barton,” Natasha says in a bored tone after they’ve been shown to a table. “We’ve been over this. If I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already. You should know that by now.”

“I do, but I don’t trust it,” Clint admits. “So sue me for being wary of a master assassin who’s eluded me all throughout Europe, and let me go when she could’ve killed me.”

Natasha’s voice is soft when she speaks, and she reaches for her glass of water. “You told me you had a wife and a family.”

“And since when does that make your guard come down faster than the Berlin Wall?” Clint challenges. “You’ve killed people with families. I know that.”

Natasha shrugs. “I like you,” she says simply. “You’re different. You don’t treat me like an object, but you also don’t treat me like a delicate flower. You’re fun to interact with. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun with someone I didn’t totally want to kill on instinct. Also --”

“Also?” Clint asks, raising an eyebrow at seemingly kind words that don’t fit the demeanor he knows is hidden underneath the facade she’s chosen to wear tonight. Natasha shrugs and smirks.

“Also, you have nice arms,” she says, tilting her head sideways. Clint snorts out a laugh and then reaches into his pocket, pulling out a rumpled, thick card.

“A little early in the night to be giving me your number, isn’t it, Barton?”

“It’s not a number,” Clint says, sitting back after he slides the card across the table. “It’s a job offer. Taking me to dinner was nice, and I appreciate that you took the time to get to know me and not kill me.” He pauses, trying to read her face as she picks up the card, attempting and failing to gauge her feelings before he continues. When the lines on her forehead multiply in what he recognizes is genuine interest, he finds himself smiling.

“But how about I return the favor and offer you something that you’d _really_ benefit from?”

 

* * *

 

Their first mission is nothing short of a disaster.

It takes place at a warehouse on the outskirts of Virginia due to rumors that the government is using the building as a hiding space for more reports that Steve wants to get his hands on and destroy, or bring to Ellis for proof that working with the government won’t help them. Predictably, Tony gets wind of the same rumors and attempts to get his team there first, and as a result, Natasha gets thrown head-first into a firefight she’s only half prepared for.

She’s so wrapped up in fighting that she completely loses track of Clint, who she had spotted shooting from above, hidden behind one of the beams of the warehouse. When she looks up a second time, after finally getting her bearings, it’s in time to see him disappear with a limp through one of the warehouse windows.

The dust settles but she doesn’t see him leave along with Wanda and the rest of Steve’s team when they move out with glares in each other’s direction. After the battle, she calls the private untraceable cell number of the phone she’d given him for just this purpose, but he doesn’t answer. Natasha doesn’t get worried, not until he doesn’t return her call or check in for over a week. Still, she goes about her business -- keeping Tony in line, fielding phone calls and meetings, dismantling arguments and watching training sessions -- until she finally reaches the point where she knows she can’t ignore her feelings.

“I need a vacation,” she tells Tony. She sees the immediate rebuttal in his eyes but stands her ground and sets her face in a hard line. “A weekend, at least. Don’t kill yourself while I’m gone.”

She sends one more message into the void and then takes off. When he finally finds her, it’s off the beaten path in one of her old bolthole in Zagreb, and she greets him by chucking a pair of throwing stars against the wall, narrowly missing his head.

And then she starts to cry.

Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye, former agent of SHIELD, partner and best friend to Natasha, wife to Laura, dad to Cooper and Lila and Nathaniel, watches her for a long time. When she’s finished unleashing her emotions, he moves to the bed where she’s sitting and puts his arm around her, murmuring half-hearted apologies into her ear. He tells her everything, as much as he can, the whole sordid story about how he had to lie low after the fight thanks to a gunshot wound to his shoulder that put him out of commission and then how Steve had needed him to go straight to D.C. to be their face for another meeting with Ellis, until she’s laughing instead of crying when he tells her how he was so pumped full of painkillers that he didn’t even realize he’d spilled coffee on the floor of the East Wing, until she’s curled into his side like a child.

That night, he stays. A storm moves in and thunder crashes wildly and the rain pounds heavy fists against the windows. She inspects his healing wound for herself and makes him tea the way she would if they were at home at the farm and allows herself to fit into his hold, the one comfort she can allow herself.

Outside, the storm rages like the war that knocks on their door, and she can’t tell where the safety ends and the horror begins.

 

***

 

The second mission -- if they’re even calling it a mission -- is worse than the first.

It’s in Berlin, and Natasha doesn’t fight.

She stands and watches and feels sick to her stomach as she stares down her best friend and partner on the other side, who is glaring at her with hatred in his eyes. She can’t tell if it’s because Steve really has poisoned his mind against her, or if he’s still just playing the game the same way she is.

 _What happens if one day it’s not just spy stuff_?

When everyone runs, she tries to align herself with Clint, because she knows Clint and she doesn’t want to fight anyone else. Rhodey and Tony and Sam take to the sky, and even Wanda seems to have mastered her powers enough to get a bit of leverage, taking her fight to the air.

_We were always better on the ground._

She collides with him by wrapping her arm around his waist and flinging him to the ground, though she takes care not to bring him down so hard he’d hit his head on the pavement of the tarmac. Clint retaliates with a punch that barely misses her cheek and she rolls out of the way, but not before he pins her with his legs.

“Remember when you told me the only way you’d fight this dirty with someone is if you were forced to?” Natasha asks as he digs a kneecap into her stomach.

“I remember,” he says, punching her in the arm, though Natasha knows he’s picked the spot where her shoulder won’t get dislocated. When she finally meets his eyes again, time seems to stop.

“Just get it over with,” Natasha grunts. “I’m already in enough pain with you sitting on me.”

Clint pushes down harder, crushing her body with pain, and then lets up abruptly.

“Run,” he mutters, scrambling off of her. Natasha doesn’t waste any time, picking herself up and limping away as she tries to get a hold of herself, attempting to find solace and safety among the continuing firefight. Out of options, she spies a vantage point at the top of a cargo hold, scaling up the side until she can see the scene better. There’s chaos everywhere, smoke and echoing blasts from Wanda’s powers and Rhodey and Tony’s gauntlets, and Natasha’s eyes water from both pain and frustration and heat.

“Stand down,” Natasha says into what she realizes is now a broken comm, thanks to Clint’s punches. She continues talking anyway, because she doesn’t know what else to do. “ _Stand_. _Down_.”

Natasha sees it out of the corner of her eye -- a flash of white and red and orange, a golden fireball hurtling straight over her and towards the abandoned trucks where Wanda and Clint are trying to take cover and she watches him run, watches the ball of fire send orange flames into the sky, watches the way he jerks and twists, every inch of his limbs fluid in a movement that she recognizes, a dance that should be crude and strange but instead looks like a grand ballet.

She watches him run, and it doesn’t feel that different from so long ago.

 

**PART II**

After the explosion, she goes underground.

She throws away all her phones and comm units and trackers but keeps her gun and widow’s bites and a few stray weapons, and she packs a bag and walks out the front door with no one any the wiser. When she gets far enough away, she ducks into a mobile shop and buys the cheapest phone they have along with the cheapest plan, and texts only a number to Clint.

She’s mostly off the grid except for small pockets of communication, when she checks in and looks at a growing list of email and messages. Lila and Cooper call her from time to time and Natasha picks up their calls, because she understands that they’ll worry if she doesn’t. She’s stopped worrying about what Clint will tell Laura, because she knows Laura knows she’s alive, just in the way that she knows when she texted Clint the number he’d share it with his family.

She dyes her hair to blonde and then back to red when she realizes she can’t stand the change. She changes her name for a few days, pretending to be Julie Cohen from the States visiting on a study abroad trip, simply because she can and because it’s about the farthest she can get from Natasha Natalia Alianovna Romanoff, former agent, former maker of bombs and guns, former self-assured Russian export. She calls Lila and reads the latest _Babysitters Club_ book over the phone, helping her stumble over the bigger words. When that’s done, she reads _Harry Potter_ with Cooper.

She’s stepping onto a fishing boat in Beijing when Clint calls her, and it takes her awhile before she decides to pick up.

“Where the ever living fuck are you?”

“Beijing. Why, do you want me to pick something up?”

“Cut the crap, Nat. Come home.”

Natasha hesitates, remembering the explosion and the blast of fire that had seared both her eyes and her heart.

“I can’t.”

“Natasha.” Clint’s walking now, she knows because she can hear his breathing getting heavier and the sound of his feet stomping against the wood floor of the farmhouse. In the background, she can also hear the ding of the stove’s timer.

 _Saturday in the States. Probably around late afternoon._ Clint and Laura always served the kids pizza lunches on Saturday afternoon.

“You’re okay?”

_I watched you die. I watched you die and this time, I couldn’t help it._

“Of course I’m okay,” Clint says a little irritably. “I mean, broken ankle and stuff, but come on. It takes more than an explosion to kill me.”

Natasha swallows and looks out over the rippling water, watching the sun throw pint-sized diamonds onto the surface.

“I didn’t do it.”

“I know you didn’t,” Clint says, his voice softening. “Hell, you think I don’t know that? That was a missile, Tasha. That wasn’t some sort of civilian bomb, that wasn’t even something Wanda could cook up. It came from Stark, or Rhodes, or hell, I don’t know, someone else. Maybe even Vision. But it’s over. You can come home.”

Natasha knows it’s not over, but she also knows Clint doesn’t understand that. Clint understands fighting the fight so that he can get back to his family. Clint doesn’t understand subduing a threat only to worry it’s going to rear its ugly head again.

“I can’t,” she says again. “But if you want to find me, you know where I am.”

She hangs up before he can respond and then walks towards the water, keeping her head down and her gait slow.

 

***

 

Natasha hops through Ljubljana, Trieste and Porec before she realizes that she doesn’t know what to do with herself. So when she’s sitting on a bench overlooking the seascape in Rovinj, trying to forget all her hurt feelings and anxiety and fear, and the fact that every time she closes her eyes she sees flames and death, things that can’t be forgotten with running, she decides there’s only one thing left that she can do.

She drinks.

It’s not the most logical way of working out her feelings, but it’s better than going through an entire country and leaving a trail of blood in her wake. She laughs as she pours herself two fingers of whiskey, because the fact that she can actually give herself that excuse is both laughable and horrific. Clint finds her at quite possibly the most inopportune time, when she’s stumbling out of a bar after having drank enough vodka to put away three oversized men.

“What are you doing?”

She stops, teeters on wobbly legs and whirls around to face him, squinting as he comes into view. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Clint steps closer, enough so that she can make out the overwhelming worry written all over his face. “Well, what it _looks_ like is that you’re trashing your way through the whole of Croatia while drinking your weight in vodka.”

“And maybe I am, and who the fuck cares?” Natasha slurs, feeling herself sway slightly. The worst part is, she knows she hasn’t even had close to enough to dulling the pain that still courses through her; she’d _wanted_ him to come, she’d hoped he’d come the way he always did and it gives her some peace of mind to know that whatever they went through, he was still on her side. At the same time, seeing him here in front of her, whole and concerned, brings back all the memories from months ago that she wishes she could forget.

“I care,” Clint says bluntly, striding forward and picking her up without warning. Natasha shrieks, and she knows it’s not the same happy sound Clint’s children make when he does the same thing to them.

“ _Put me down_ ,” she yells, banging her fists uselessly against his firm back, hitting the hard muscles that she knows are laced with heavy scars. Natasha knows he would claim she’s the better fighter, but he’s always been stronger when it comes to brute strength and she hates him for that.

“Put me down!” Natasha yells again, both indignant and embarrassed, as Clint moves swiftly through the streets. She’s aware she’s making a scene and yet she also knows that in her state and given the time of night, no one will even give a shit. _Another drunken moment for someone who didn’t know their limits_ , is what they would probably think. How incredibly wrong they were.

She eventually tires of yelling, the alcohol making her drowsy and draining the fight out of her, and when she opens her eyes after closing them for too long she finds herself in an unfamiliar space that she supposes has to be one of his personal boltholes, one that couldn’t have been too far from where she was picked up, judging by the fact that he’s barely broken a sweat from walking.

“This is what being Team Cap gets you?” Natasha asks rudely. Clint doesn’t answer, instead rooting around in his bag for a bottle of Russian standard and a plastic glass. He holds it out.

“Here. You wanna drink yourself to death, Tasha? Fine. But if you’re gonna get trashed beyond all reason, do it here, where I can see you.”

She doesn’t know whether or not to believe him, or whether or not he’s trying to goad her into some sort of apology, but she decides she doesn’t care. Natasha takes the bottle from his hand and unscrews the top, downing a healthy amount of vodka that leaves her gagging from the potent taste.

“Jesus,” Clint mutters, and his voice sounds muffled in her pounding ears. “Leave some for me, if you’re gonna have all the fun.”

She glares again and shoves the bottle messily across the floor. Clint takes it and drinks for a long time; he’s slower, she notices, more practiced and calm, taking his time to savor and swallow the liquid that smells and tastes like rubbing alcohol. She watches his throat contract and release with each gulp and when he finally comes up for air, he looks a little drowsy himself.

“I had to catch up,” he explains, blinking as he lets the aftermath of his actions hit him.

“Took you long enough to get here,” Natasha says, grabbing the bottle away. She can’t feel her hands and she wishes the feeling would travel to her insides rather than sit in her limbs. Her hands didn’t have emotions like her brain did.

“You made it kind of hard,” Clint responds, taking the bottle back and drinking again. “Also, I have a family, remember? Kind of hard to pack up and leave when you’re supposed to be home, especially when the reason you have to give your wife is, ‘my partner went off the grid and is wreaking havoc across all of Europe.”

“Hardly the worst thing I’ve done since you’ve known me,” Natasha scoffs. She’s bordering on a little more than tipsy now, which she can at least handle. _Better. This is better._ “You chased me around Europe for weeks.”

“Yeah, because I thought I was gonna kill you,” he says sarcastically. “Also, you weren’t drunk off your ass.”

“You could _never_ keep up with me,” Natasha slurs ruthlessly. “I’m Russian. Well, I was.”

“Fuck you too,” Clint responds, taking the bottle and going in for another long, heavy sip. This time, he comes up coughing, and she assumes some alcohol has made it down the wrong pipe by accident.

“Can’t handle drinking with your partner, Barton? Or former partner, I guess, now that we’re stuck on different sides of a warring faction who can’t decide how to deal with their feelings unless it involves blowing things up?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he manages. “Or I’ll be forced to start one of those dumb drinking games.”

Natasha doesn’t know whether it’s the alcohol or the situation that makes her laugh so hard, but once she starts giggling, she finds she can’t stop. “I think we’re a little late for that.”

“No shit,” Clint says, drinking again once he’s recovered from his coughing fit. “You wanna finish this bottle, or should I?”

It’s not even a challenge she should bother with but she reaches out anyway, taking as long a drink as she can, feeling the alcohol burn its way down her throat and into her stomach. When she steadies herself and sits up, she feels her entire world closing in on her, a swimming sensation combined with a dull throbbing somewhere near her eyes.

“I love you,” she slurs with a grin. She’s vaguely aware of falling, of pitching sideways onto what she knows is terribly patterned carpet, of Clint’s hands heavy and gentle in her hair as he wraps a blanket around her body and kisses her cheek.

And finally -- _finally, fucking finally_ \-- her mind quiets. 

 

* * *

 

The first actual mission Clint takes Natasha on as a real SHIELD agent is detail at a gala in Monte Carlo, where they’re supposed to pose as a rich married couple in order to infiltrate the event and find some stolen weapons. Clint’s job is to suss out the informant responsible for playing a role and keep watch to make sure nothing goes haywire, Natasha’s job is to use her charm and general smooth-talking skills to stick a tracker on said informant, once he’s been identified.

It was essentially the most mundane job they could be offered for their combined skills, but Clint knew that Natasha’s first assignment with him wasn’t going to be breaking necks in Kiev. And while he’d expected her to whine about being bored, he’d been surprised to find that Natasha barely put up a fight when he told her where they were going and what they were doing. It would have made Clint more suspicious, had he not started to understand her enough to realize that she was finally letting down her guard enough to feel comfortable around him and not put up a front.

“I think this is sexist,” Natasha announces from the bathroom, where she’s finishing getting dressed. Clint snorts from the other room of the hotel suite they’ve settled into.

“Well, _yeah_.” He fiddles with his bowtie. “I mean, look. I agree, but it’s not my fault that the guys that attend these things tend to be deaf, dumb and blind as soon as a hot chick in a low cut dress shows up and smiles at them. You have to know that. I know your file. You’ve attended dozens of these things.”

“Yes, I have,” Natasha says in a voice that borders on wary. “But at the time, I was doing it for fun. Now I have a responsibility. And a job.”

“Think of it as a way to clean out your ledger,” Clint says. “And don’t set any bombs while you’re at it, okay?” He shrugs on his jacket and then glances at the minibar, debating for a moment before he kills the lock and takes out a small bottle of whiskey, slipping it into his pocket. It would be good for the road, he figures, and with the way things are going, he’ll probably need it.

“Come on, Agent Barton. Or should I call you Clinton? I really have no idea what I’m supposed to call you now that I’m not trying to kill you.”

Clint bites his tongue as he slips the bottle of alcohol into his pocket, reaching for a glass. “Agent Barton is fine,” he calls back sarcastically. “I’m still your partner and technically, for awhile, I’m your boss. Remember?”

“Yes,” Natasha says, finally stepping out of the bathroom. “I remember.”

Clint almost drops the cup he’s holding, his eyes widening in surprise before he can stop what he know is a very obvious reaction. Natasha’s dressed in a plunging v-neck floor length gown the color of crushed velvet green, and that’s the first thing he finds himself noticing. For some reason, he never thought of Natasha as someone who would wear that hue -- it would be too much like a Christmas tree with her red hair, a cliche she’d never willingly make herself. But the color offsets her pale skin and deep red curls in a way that’s breathtaking. It’s not the cleavage that gets him, it’s the overall picture of the woman he formerly knew only as his adversary standing in front of him with curls that have been softened and brushed and pulled up on one side, lips that are glistening with soft pink gloss, and a steady collection of sparkling silver jewelry including bangles on her wrists, a delicate choker around her neck, and two teardrop shaped diamonds brushing the side of her throat. She holds herself regally and confidently, as if she knows she’s the most gorgeous person in the room -- and suddenly, Clint understands how Natasha has managed so many successful ops over the years.

“You, uh.” He safely returns the cup to the counter near the television and realizes his palms are sweaty. “You look great.”

Natasha smirks, clearly pleased with herself as she walks forward and runs a finger over his arm. “Remember, Agent Barton, you’ve got a wife. Wouldn’t want to mess with that.”

Clint watches her walk towards the door and out of the room, and smiles.

 

* * *

 

Clint wakes up with a body full of knives and a stomach full of angry sea, and the only reason he wakes at all is because someone is making bacon and the smell is assaulting his senses enough to make him sick.

Someone -- _Natasha_. Right. He squints, trying to remember what happened, why he feels so much like shit -- god, why does he feel like _shit_ \-- before his eyes travel around the room, taking in the empty oversized bottle of Russian Standard vodka, the mess of the room, and the blanket on the floor. Everything from picking up Natasha outside of the bar to downing too much liquor comes back to him, making him groan in pain.

Well, at least Laura would never have to know he’d just repeated a night he’s pretty sure he hasn’t had since his army days.

He gives himself another moment before he sits up, trying to orient himself, an attempt that ends poorly when he flops back down on the bed. He sits up again slowly and then gets out of bed and walks out of the bedroom and into the small kitchen.

“Good morning to you too,” Natasha says from behind the freezer door. When she finally emerges and meets his eyes he finds that she looks exhausted and worse for the wear and a little green, but otherwise no different than as if they’d just traveled for forty-eight hours through multiple states on no sleep. Clint, however, has a freight train barreling through his head that refuses to slow down.

“Ugh,” he grunts, bracing himself against the table. Natasha gives him a look.

“If you’re going to be sick, do it in the bathroom, please. I don’t feel like cleaning up your mess this morning.”

“I can’t believe you drank your weight _and_ the weight of fifteen men in vodka last night, and you’re standing here like nothing’s wrong, making breakfast while I want to die,” he complains. “It’s really not fair.”

Natasha shrugs. “Russian,” is all she says even though she knows as well as he does that’s a stereotypical lie. He watches as she turns away, continuing to poke at the bacon curling on the stove, and swallows down a wave of nausea. It's infuriating, because he can almost hear Natasha nonchalantly counting down in her head, because she knows him _that_ well.

_Five...four...three...two…_

He lurches forward, bolting from the kitchen, and barely makes it to the bathroom before he throws up heavily.

“Better?” Natasha asks casually when he comes back into the room, his face pale and beading with sweat.

“Actually, yeah,” he admits, sliding into the kitchen chair. He still feels like someone ran him over with a mack truck, but at least most of the queasiness is gone. “Don’t think I’ll be taking advantage of the continental breakfast anytime soon, though.”

“Pity,” Natasha says with a smirk. “And here I thought you were going to thank me for being your maid.” She finishes making a plate of eggs and slides it across the table to him, even when he makes a face. “Dare I ask where we are?”

“A little ways from Rovinj,” says Clint after a beat. He rubs the side of his head. “One of my old boltholes from early SHIELD days. Thanks for picking a place I still had some roots set down in, by the way.” He watches Natasha carefully ignore his comment, turning back to make her own plate.

“I don’t want to talk about what’s going on at home.”

“I know,” Clint says, pushing egg around because he’s still not hungry. He reaches for a cup of coffee Natasha’s poured instead. “So we’re not gonna talk. Besides, I don’t think my head can take any serious conversation right now.”

She brings her plate to the table and he notices there’s pain behind her gaze. It’s the kind of pain he realizes he hasn’t seen since he met her so many years ago, when she was trying to desperately hide who she was, when she was trying to hide the fact that she cared about anything other than killing people.

“I’ll drink to that,” she says, raising her own coffee cup with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

 

***

 

“I’m thinking,” Natasha begins, because she is. She counts the seconds in between the silence before the inevitable snort of laughter comes, but it’s not a lie. She _is_ thinking.

“You’re running away.”

“I am not.” It’s not a desperate protest as much as it’s a ladylike rejection, but whatever -- it fits the weather and the idyllic stretch of beach she’s picked for them, the place she figures they can wait out their hangovers, or rather, _his_ hangover in peace.

“You so are. You won’t even answer Laura’s phone calls. She’s been trying to call you -- Lila came in first in her tennis tournament this weekend.”

“I’ll send a card and flowers,” Natasha says, her tone perfunctory, and Clint sighs as he stretches out on the blanket next to her. She counts the scars she can see along his body -- _one, two, three, four, four and a half, stupid bullet wound_ \-- before he speaks again.

“Is there a particular reason you chose Croatia?”

Natasha shrugs, looking around the beach. “I shot too many people in Cancun.”

“Christ alive, Nat.”

“Anyway, I’m thinking.” She pauses. “How long do you think I have before people start wondering where the fuck I am?”

“Realistically?” Clint eyes her. “I’d say about two weeks from yesterday.”

“Seriously?” Natasha feels herself grow disappointed, though she’s not sure why. It wasn’t like Tony Stark’s most trusted ally taking off and leaving them in a lurch wasn’t something she knew was probably making morning news headlines at home.

“Yeah, sorry.” He rubs a hand over his eyes. “Probably not enough time to take that road trip across Europe.”

Natasha shoots him a glare that burns through her sunglasses. “I never liked Europe in the summertime.”

“Too crowded?”

“No.” Natasha sighs. “Too hot. Have you ever tried to murder people in ninety degree heat? The stench of blood is _ridiculous_. And horrible. Top five on my ‘things that make me want to puke’ list.”

Clint doesn’t bother to respond to that and so Natasha sighs again. “Anyway, I’m thinking,” she continues. She takes off her sunglasses, rubbing the dirt and sweat off of them. “How does Laura feel about you taking a sabbatical?”

 

***

 

 _I need to clean up my ledger._ She types out the words and sends them in a text when she finally does tell Laura, who immediately returns the message with a phone call.

“I thought you did.”

“I did,” Natasha confirms. “Kind of.” She glances towards Clint, who’s busying himself by checking out the items in a gaudy tourist shop.

“Why?”

Natasha closes her eyes. “Because. There are things that are going to happen and I need to make sure that the people who I care about are protected.”

“Things that will involve my husband?”

 _Probably. Definitely._ “Yes,” Natasha says and Laura swallows down what sounds like a cry.

“Can you do me a favor?”

“You want that dress I saw last time I was away, right?”

Laura doesn’t answer, quiet for a long time on the other end of the line. “Can you make sure he comes home?”

Natasha hesitates, opening her eyes in time to catch Clint perusing an absolutely terrible hat. While Natasha has spent her whole life lying, she hasn’t lied to Laura since she met her so many years ago.

“I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

The first time Natasha considers herself truly blindsided by her new partner is six months after she becomes officially embedded in SHIELD, after four full missions and two debriefings that have ended in Clint getting reamed out for his behavior, and dozens of after work drinks and late night diner breakfasts.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Clint says evasively as he navigates their car down the bumpy road. Natasha frowns because Natasha hates _we’ll see_. She likes knowing what’s coming; it’s part of why she always liked setting bombs because it was a nice, tidy calculation -- set the bomb, wait out the detonation, one-two-three-four-five -- BOOM.

Clint hardly ever tells her what’s coming and it unnerves her.

She soon does see what’s coming, though, and it’s a dark haired woman holding a child by the hand as she waves at the car that’s approaching a huge house. Natasha turns sharply to Clint.

“This woman that lives here. Can we trust her?”

Clint’s smile grows wider in a way that makes Natasha feel uncomfortable. “Oh, I’m sure we can.” He stops the car and gets out, leaving her behind and Natasha stews quietly, frustrated with his non-answers and his cheeky responses, as if he was comfortable with her, as if he wasn’t even _bothered_ by the fact that if she wanted to, she could grab the garotte she’s hidden underneath the seat and kill him.

Natasha watches from inside the car as he meets the woman, hugging her and kissing her intimately, before reaching down to hug and kiss the small child who throws his arms around Clint’s neck.

“Natasha, this is Laura,” he says when she finally gets out of the car. “My wife,” he adds with a puffed out chest though Natasha wouldn’t have needed the addition of that information; she was smart enough to put two and two together.

“And this,” he says, leaning down to put a hand on the little boy’s shoulder, “is my son, Cooper.” Cooper looks like a miniature version of Clint, he’s short and stocky and his body is shaped differently but his face is similar enough that she can definitely tell it’s her partner’s offspring.

“Hi,” Natasha says awkwardly, because she’s unsure what you say to people who you knew existed, but didn’t really know at all. “I, uh. It’s nice working with your husband.”

Laura smiles tentatively and Natasha wonders if Clint’s told her anything about her. She decides she doesn’t care, because it’s not like she was ever going to hang around here long enough to have more than a few dinners, anyway.

“Well, come on, I’ll show you inside,” Laura says finally with another small smile, leading Natasha up the lawn and into the house. She gives her a quick tour of what Natasha notices is a supremely messy living room and kitchen, and then brings her upstairs to a guest bedroom adjacent from what Natasha assumes is the master bedroom. Everything about the farm is homely and comfortable, from the creaking floors to the scent of wood burning pine in the fireplace to the cookies warming in the oven, but it’s not the domesticated part that makes Natasha’s skin crawl. It’s the fact that everything is _too_ cozy.

“I’ll leave you two for a moment,” Laura says when Natasha steps awkwardly into the room. The moment the door closes, Natasha wastes no time in charging at Clint, grabbing him by the fabric of his thin shirt.

“Why the _fuck_ didn’t you tell me this girl was your wife? Or that you were taking me to your home?” Natasha all but hisses, shoving him hard against the wall. Clint looks unconcerned at both her anger and her question.

“You didn’t ask. Besides, the first thing I told you when we met was that I had a wife. And you said you looked through my files.”

“A picture of your wife and a farmhouse wasn’t in your files!”

“Oh.” Clint looks amused. “No, it wasn’t.” He pushes her back and she stumbles, unprepared for his strength. “Fury set up this up for me when I joined SHIELD, with a promise to keep Laura and the kids off the grid for safety reasons. They don’t exist anywhere else. And as far as SHIELD is concerned, I’m the happiest bachelor in existence. Though, I’m sure some gossipers would imply I’ve been looking at my partner a lot lately.”

Natasha gives him a look. “You’re a fucking idiot,” she says angrily, and he smiles.

“I’ll take it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to spend time with my son. You can stay here and settle in or...do whatever the hell you do. Just don’t set off any bombs.” He winks and then opens the door, boots clomping against the hardwood, and Natasha gives takes a few moments to collect herself by sitting on the floral patterned comforter. When she finally leaves to go to the bathroom, she passes by Cooper’s room, the door of which is slightly open, and is surprised at what she sees. Clint’s sitting on the bed with Cooper, laughing while his hands fly in sign language. His son is matching his movements and Natasha stops and stares and tries to not look as agape as she feels.

“Oh.” Clint turns around when Cooper nods towards the door. “Hey. I didn’t know you were there.”

“You…” Natasha furrows her brow. “You’re _deaf_?”

“Enough,” Clint says as Cooper gets off the bed and wanders out of the room at Clint’s nudging. “My son, also. A little bit. We think that since he’s so young, he can get it fixed. Well, we’re hopeful. It’s a procedure.”

“I don’t see your hearing aids,” Natasha says uncertainly after a long pause. “And I’ve never seen you take anything out or put anything in.”

“Yeah.” Clint shrugs. “When I started at SHIELD, Fury gave me some Stark-issued aids that basically are invisible. I can even sleep in them and shower with them and they won’t give me weird buzzing sounds or anything like that. They’re pretty cool. Sometimes if I’m in a really bad op they can get jostled and fall out, but otherwise, I kind of forget they’re there.”

Natasha stares at him more, letting the words sink in, trying to figure out how he can be so open with her and yet _still_ keep so many secrets below the surface.

“How come I never knew?”

Clint smiles. “You didn’t ask.”

 

* * *

 

Natasha doesn’t necessarily want to return to Clint’s safehouse for the night, even though it’s the most logical place to go, and Clint recognizes the need to switch locations as Natasha needing to be mobile mostly so she doesn’t feel like someplace is too comfortable. They find a hotel on the beach that has vacancy, and it’s more than a little swanky but Natasha sweet talks the receptionist into dropping the price of a larger room. Clint puts it on his credit card figuring he’ll explain away the bill later.

“Hey, when was the last time we had accommodations like this?” Clint asks after they drop their bags. He crawls onto the bed, stretching out with his arms and legs wide over what he’s sure is a disgusting comforter.

“Berlin?” She stops, her brows creased in thought. “No, maybe Denmark -- crap, where were we the night before Lila was born?”

“Pisa!” Clint proclaims triumphantly, rolling over. Natasha sighs, sitting down next to him.

“Why did you really ask me to come here?” Clint asks after a moment, his voice dropping into seriousness. “Because I know it wasn’t to reminisce about my daughter’s birth.”

“It wasn’t,” Natasha admits and Clint watches as she collects herself, as if she needs to make sure she’s saying exactly what she wants to express. She rolls out of the bed and walks over to the floor-to-wall length mirror, staring at herself blankly. When she speaks, he can barely hear her.

“I need to remake myself.”

Clint swallows and takes a deep breath, because fuck if this wasn’t Natasha -- fuck if this wasn’t the epitome of his partner, who would go off the rails and run all over Europe because she needed to completely knock herself down before admitting something like this. He gets up, walking slowly until he’s standing right behind her and places two hands on her shoulders, as if he’s trying to steady her.

“Do you want help?”

Her skin is warm beneath his fingers, and he feels her shudder as if she’s breaking apart, bones snapping with each stroke of his touch. _Yes_ , he can practically hear her think. _Yes, I do_.

“No,” she answers out loud and Clint bows his head, letting his forehead fall against her neck.

“It’s just a war, Tasha. We’ve both been in war.”

“Not like this.” She doesn’t elaborate but he thinks he knows what she means. _Not like we’re trying to kill each other._ He swallows down his feelings.

“So what do you propose we do, then? Hide out here? You know how long it’s going to be until we can walk around freely again, without people pointing cameras in our faces? Do you know how many press conferences and lies I had to tell after all that shit happened at the airport? And I can’t stay here forever, away from my family. It’s not fair to them.”

Natasha turns around abruptly. “I _know_ that,” she snaps. “Jesus, why do you think I took off by myself?”

“Really?” Clint asks sarcastically. “I know _damn_ well why you took off by yourself, Natasha. Because you were scared, and because you were afraid you went too far in that fight. You were afraid that you couldn’t face what this would become. You knew I’d come find you, because you’re not stupid, but you made it a goddamn wild goose chase.”

Natasha’s not refuting his words but Clint notices she’s not yelling back at him, either, which is the usual way she deals with things unless she wants to throw something or drink herself into oblivion, both of which she’s already done in the past twenty-four hours.

“So what?” Natasha’s voice is challenging but her tone is wobbly, to the point where Clint actually feels _bad_ because he knows Natasha has to hate this -- both the reason why she’s so unstable and the fact that she’s so openly vulnerable. “What are we going to do, then? If you’re saying we can’t stay here and we can’t hide out, what the fuck are you supposed to tell me to do?”

“Well, you could drink yourself through another five cities,” he says placidly and she throws a pillow at him.

“I’m serious, asshole. What the fuck do we do?”

This time, when Clint looks at her, his eyes are as serious as his voice.

“We go home.”

 

***

 

Natasha’s not sure if she agrees with the fact that Clint just wants to go _home_ \-- as if it’s that easy, as if she can forget everything and come back to a place he’s belonged his entire life. Natasha has never belonged anywhere that wasn’t in a cell or to a handler, and even though she’s comfortable at Clint’s farm now and even more comfortable with Laura, there was still a part of her that felt she couldn’t quite put her uneasiness aside when it came to putting her roots down.

He can’t pilot a quinjet the way they’re used to but apparently he still has access to certain channels, because a jet is waiting for them when they reach what Natasha recognizes as Portorož Airport.

“Tourist and private flights only,” Clint says in a pretend pilot voice as he leads her onto the tiny plane. They sit in the backend, knees knocking together comfortably as the plane eases into the air, dipping back and forth steadily as it rises above the clouds.

“So, what are you going to do when you get home?”

“I thought I was _moving_ into the farm,” Natasha says with a smirk and Clint raises an eyebrow.

“You know if you even so much as insinuate that, Lila will never let me hear the end of it.”

“Yeah.” Natasha nods. “You’re right. Maybe I’ll just live in the barn or something. Wire up the walls with cables and stuff, make it my own special place. Get a dog.”

Clint snorts. “A _dog_ , Tasha?”

“Fine.” She sighs. “A cat, then.”

“Hmm.” Clint pushes air past his teeth. “Warm and fuzzy creatures? You don’t strike me as a cat person.”

“What the hell does _that_ mean?”

“I’m an _observer_ , Tash. I observe. See better from a distance and all that.” He grins. “Maybe you should get a black cat. One that’s the same color as your heart.”

“Fuck you,” Natasha spits and Clint grins.

“Love you, too.”

Clint tells her he loves her all the time. Natasha knows it’s not love in the same way that he loves Laura, and she likes that, because it makes her feel safe. No one has ever told her _I love you_ before unless it was a lie, and unless they were trying to get her to belong to them. Clint never actually asked her to belong to him, though. They just _happened_. Natasha’s stomach rolls as the jet bumps through the air, and she wonders if it’s possible to have a hangover that lasts more than two days.

“At least Laura will be happy I’m bringing you back in one piece,” she says as she rests her head against the seatback. “Maybe you can retire for real.”

Clint snorts. “I wouldn’t count on it. Stark and Rogers are pretty set about arguing about more things I really don’t understand or have an interest in.”

It’s the first time he’s actually mentioned their friends and teammates since he came back, and Natasha feels her stomach clench up.

“They know you’re coming home,” Clint says, glancing up, as if he knows what she’s thinking of. “Steve, Sam, Tony...all of ‘em. I had to at least confirm you weren’t dead in a ditch somewhere. But no one’s gonna bother you. I told them if they want to continue to fight, they can do it without us.”

“Are you sure?” Natasha asks in a small voice, because it feels like she’s running away all over again.

“Yeah. I mean, I know that you and I love getting into a fight in order to get our feelings out,” says Clint with a teasing grin. “And if you want, we can do that here. But I also know when you need a break. So. This is your break, Tasha.”

Natasha smiles and looks out at the window, staring at the clouds and flight patterns that she doesn’t understand, waiting for the ones she knows so well to appear.

 

* * *

 

“Do you cook?” Natasha asks one day after they’ve left the farm and are on their way back to SHIELD, via a quinjet Clint has requested.

“Sometimes,” Clint answers. “Laura generally doesn’t let me make anything other than the simple things, though. Like mac and cheese, and crock pot recipes. She apparently thinks I’ll burn down the kitchen.” He looks over quickly as he moves the controls of the quinjet. “Why?”

“I…” Natasha’s voice catches in her throat. “I was just curious,” she says lamely, staring out the window. “I’ve never seen you cook.”

“Right. Well, you wouldn’t, really,” Clint says, sounding unconcerned. “Not like I spend my off-time at SHIELD taking culinary classes.” He pauses to dip the jet slightly in order to avoid a flock of birds that have veered into their flight path. “Do _you_ like to cook?”

Natasha realizes she hasn’t been prepared for the question to be thrown back at her, though she probably should have been. “No,” she says, her lips curling up. “I prefer baking. They’re two different things, you know.”

Clint snorts. “What, you make like, snickerdoodles and stuff in your spare time?”

“Actually, yes,” Natasha responds and Clint’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Wait, _seriously_?”

“Well, not just snickerdoodles,” she says, playing with her hands. “Sometimes just regular chocolate chip cookies. Sugar cookies, nutella bars, brownies, chocolate cakes…” She trails off when she realizes Clint’s looking at her in awe, and if she didn’t trust his piloting skills so much, she’d be worried he’d crash the quinjet.

“You...how the hell did I never know you liked to _bake_?”

Natasha grins, a feeling of easy contentment settling into her belly.

“You didn’t ask.”

 

* * *

 

Laura greets Natasha with a hug, what Natasha can tell is half “thank god you’re okay,” and half “thank god my husband is okay.” Natasha decides not to tell Laura about her bender, alcohol or otherwise.

“I made lunch for you,” Laura says as she ushers Natasha inside. “The kids are at school but they’ll be home later -- you can play with Nathaniel for a bit, if you want.”

Natasha doesn’t have to ask Laura what she’s made, because she can smell the pasta sauce being warmed on the stove, and it soothes something inside of her. Italian food had been a comfort more than once when she didn’t have a place to go and needed something she could use to ground herself; an older woman in the bowels of a Grecian city had served it to her after she had taken Natasha in when she broken and sick after a mission that left her close to death. It was one of the few secrets Natasha had never told anyone aside from Clint, because back then, those acts of kindness came rarely, if they came at all. They were something to savor, to keep close to the vest.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, hugging Laura tightly. Laura always smelled of home-grown farm scents, but not in the cliche way that Natasha once expected looking at a woman who lived alone with a child and worked around the house, a woman who made her own bread and mulled cider and chopped her own wood for the fireplace, all because her husband was out doing more dangerous things. The things that Laura smells like are homely and unique, things Natasha can’t quite find anywhere else, not even in Clint: lavender, smokey embers of a crackling fire the color of her own hair, pine nuts that she collects with her son. Laura wasn’t the hero who saved lives and shot arrows, but she _was_ the hero who ran around with three children and somehow managed to keep a neat house and cook dinner and patch up bandaged knees, and over time, Natasha’s come to consider it the same thing as Clint saving a city.

“Hey, I’ve got a baby!” Clint says, interrupting the scene with a babbling and drooling Nathaniel, and suddenly Natasha finds a sprawling, chubby mass of arms and legs being dumped into her arms.

“You were waiting for weeks to have someone else here to pass the work of your kid off to, weren’t you?” Natasha asks with a sigh as she adjusts Nate in her arms, and the baby grins through a mouthful of drool.

“Natasha, Nathaniel...same thing,” Clint says with a wink before disappearing into the kitchen. Natasha stands alone with the baby for awhile, bouncing him gently, letting the small child put even smaller fingers on her skin as if he can help piece her back together.

 

***

 

After Natasha has settled in and the kids have gone to bed (Nathaniel notwithstanding because even though the baby’s not an infant anymore he still doesn’t sleep more than a few hours at a time), Clint comes into Natasha’s bedroom and motions towards the stairs.

“Got something to show you,” he says a little excitedly, in a way that’s both endearing and annoying and so specific to _Clint_. Natasha follows him down the stairs and outside to the backyard, where she’s greeted with the surprise of a long walkway paved with stones, one that leads to a small pit surrounded by a few chairs.

“When did you get a firepit?” Natasha asks in surprise, sitting down on one of the chairs and curling up almost instantly.

“Built it in retirement,” Clint says with a smug grin. “Kids love it. Laura and I love it more.”

“Let me guess -- because you can make out, drink, and talk about stuff away from the house?”

“Bingo,” Clint says, sitting down next to her and producing a bottle of wine along with two plastic cups. Natasha eyes it warily.

“You sure you want to give me alcohol again after that whole debacle in Rovinj?”

“Well, I’m relatively sure that you’re not going to drink so much you’re going to become unstable here,” Clint says, pouring what Natasha recognizes as cheap Chardonnay into a cup. “Because if you do, I’m going to make you sleep in the barn for real.”

Natasha hides a small smile as she takes the cup from Clint, sipping slowly. Clint lights the fire and she stares at the crackling flames and wishes she could reach out and touch them, she wishes she could wrap the embers between her fingers so she could feel their heat more than she does just on her face.

Natasha liked things that were tangible. Blood was tangible. Bombs were tangible. Fire was tangible. Hugs from Laura and Cooper and Lila and Nathaniel were tangible. Clint Barton, the man in front of her, was tangible.

“What are you thinking of?” Clint asks, breaking into her thoughts. Natasha shrugs off the question with another sip of wine.

“Nothing,” she lies smoothly and Clint rolls his eyes. Natasha wonders why she even bothers anymore.

“I’m thinking that it was stupid,” Natasha says after a long pause, running her finger over the rim of the plastic cup. Now, Clint does look confused.

“What was stupid?”

Natasha sighs loudly, leaning back in the wicker chair that creaks slightly underneath her weight. “Deciding to fight. Deciding to split up. Hoping that it could have any outcome different than what I feared would happen at that first damn meeting.” She pauses as her voice cracks.

“We split up so you could protect me,” Clint says quietly. “So you could protect us.”

“And look at where it got us,” Natasha says miserably. “On different sides of a war. With me losing my shit and running away through every country that’s not America’s Great Plains. With you abandoning your wife and kid again so you could track me down.”

“He didn’t abandon us,” Laura says from behind him and Natasha turns around in surprise, because she hasn’t heard her approach. “I let him go. Although he did promise he’d come back in one piece.”

“Which I did,” Clint says defensively, passing Laura the bottle of wine. Natasha watches as Laura sits down in the chair next to Clint, reflexively lacing their fingers together and she tries not to stare too much. She’d never minded Clint and Laura’s relationship -- it was the only thing in her life that she felt like she had any connection with. But tonight, she’s feeling lonely and like she needs something _tangible_ , and she knows it wouldn’t right to lace her fingers through Clint’s other hand like she’s used to doing when they’re alone on missions in foreign countries and only have each other to lean on for comfort.

But then she finds there’s a soft pressure on her knee, and Clint’s leaning over and smiling in that way that means he knows exactly what she wants, even if she can’t say the words out loud.

Natasha continues to drink her wine and stares into the firepit, wondering how everything went from bombs to this. 

 

* * *

 

Everything goes wrong on a mission in Morocco, when Clint’s arm gets broken six ways to Sunday.

It’s his non-shooting arm that takes the hit, which Natasha thinks is a small miracle if she can allow herself to be thankful for any kind of miracle, but she also knows he’s ambidextrous and it’s about the only thing that makes her feel better about the situation.

“Just sit,” she says, trying to get him to stop moving as he attempts to crawl out from under the pile of bodies he’s taken down in their attack. The AIM goons hadn’t even been that deadly compared to what Natasha knew they could have run into, but they were still ruthless. When Clint had grabbed one by the wrist to try to pull it to the ground, his attacker had turned on him, wrenching his arm back and twisting it so hard Natasha swears she had heard a crack before the scream.

“I hate sitting,” he mutters, licking sweat off his upper lip. He’s pale and becoming paler by the minute thanks to the pain, though Natasha finds herself thankful she doesn’t have to deal with blood loss.

“Well, tough. I need to get us help and you can’t move. And I can’t set that arm by myself. It needs surgery.”

“And I need to not pass out, I’m assuming?” His breathing is labored and she tries not to pay attention to how fast her own heart beats in response.

“Generally, yes, you shouldn’t pass out when you have an injury this bad,” Natasha says curtly as she helps prop him up against the wall of the warehouse they’ve infiltrated. He’s going into shock, that much she can tell, but beyond that she’s not sure how much he can handle in terms of pain tolerance.

“You’re not gonna leave me, right?”

Natasha looks up in surprise from where she’s been trying to wrap her jacket around his shivering body, and her tongue wants to unleash a million sarcastic things -- namely, why the hell would he think she would leave him? They were partners now, or they were supposed to be, and he was _hurt_. And who in their right mind would leave their hurt partner?

And then she catches sight of the terror washing over his face, the vulnerability he can’t hide thanks to his injury, and it occurs to her that he’s serious, and that maybe this wasn’t just an unusual way of thinking. Maybe people in his life or in his past really hadn’t ever stayed when they were supposed to.

“No,” Natasha says, knowing that he’s too distracted and hurt to hear the waver in her voice that gives away all her emotions. She crouches down so that he can hear her, just in case his aids for some reason aren’t doing their job. “I won’t leave you, Clint.” 

 

* * *

 

Natasha doesn’t know why Wanda comes to the farm. She doesn’t _expect_ Wanda to come to the farm. But five days after she comes back with Clint, Natasha opens the door to get the morning paper and the person on the other side looks startled, hand raised in a fist as if she means to knock.

“Uh.” Natasha’s caught off guard, having not seen anyone from the team since she fled after the attack in Berlin. “Hi?”

“Hi,” Wanda says softly and just as uncertainly, and Natasha wonders if she expected to see her here at all. “I am sorry -- did I interrupt something important?”

“I --”

“Hey, Wanda!” Clint’s behind her suddenly, walking towards the door. “You made it. Sorry, uh…” He breaks off, glancing at Natasha with what she realizes is a guilty look, the same look she’s seen him gives Laura when he’s done something he probably should have told her about beforehand. “I was going to tell you Wanda was coming, but I thought it would be better as a surprise.”

Natasha wants to laugh because she can see right through Clint’s lie, but instead of giving him the usual _fuck you are you serious, Barton?_ look that she knows is trademark of their relationship, she lets herself smile. The truth is, while she’s not sure how she feels about seeing anyone else from the team, she _is_ happy to see Wanda.

It wasn’t like Wanda had tried to kill her, after all.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Wanda says as Natasha opens the door further and steps inside. Natasha closes it against a brilliantly beautiful sunrise that seems almost too pure and too striking. “It is nice to know I have a place to go that is not just a room at a training center.”

“Believe me, Nat and I know exactly what that’s like,” Clint says, taking a sip of coffee. “By the way, that reminds me -- coffee? Breakfast? Laura’s got everything. Well, almost everything. You wouldn’t believe how fast you go through a refrigerator when you have three kids, and one of them doesn’t even eat anything other than cereal.”

Natasha lets Clint do what he does best in his own house, at SHIELD, in the middle of the Saharan desert -- take care of people -- while she fades into the background, at least until Clint sticks his head out of the kitchen.

“Nat, come on. Coffee’s ready. You’ll kill me if I take most of it, and Laura’s not going to wait for you.”

Natasha forces out a smile and enters the kitchen where Wanda is sitting at the table with a full plate of pancakes, and Natasha walks to the counter to grab a cup, pouring herself some caffeine from the still-hot and still-mostly filled carafe.

“Trip wasn’t too bad, then?” Clint asks, sliding into a chair and Wanda shakes her head.

“It was fine. I have never been in such a clean taxicab before,” she says a little hesitantly.

Clint laughs. “Yeah, we care about our travelers in the midwest,” he says, motioning for Natasha to sit down. “Don’t get caught drunk while taking a cab in Chicago, though. We’ve got a fifty dollar fine for throw-up there.”

Wanda smiles again and Clint clears his throat. “I was thinking maybe Natasha could take you shopping later, once you’ve settled in.”

Natasha’s head snaps up from where she’s been staring at her coffee. “I...what?” Her brow creases at the same time that she _does_ decide to shoot Clint the _fuck you are you serious, Barton?_ look that she knows makes him cringe.

“I have to take Cooper to a friend’s house, and Laura’s taking the baby out for errands with Lila,” Clint says, as though the explanation is the most obvious thing in the world. “Besides, it could be nice to just hang out with no otherworldly threat. And Wanda needs some clothes.”

Natasha grits her teeth because it’s not that she doesn’t want to spend time with Wanda. It’s that she doesn’t want to spend time potentially having to talk about what happened after the explosion, or what she did following it, and she’s not sure what else she _is_ supposed to talk about, if it’s not that.

She also knows she’s completely boxed in by Clint’s suggestion.

“Fine,” she says shortly, hoping her voice doesn’t come out as curt as it sounds. She takes an abrupt sip of coffee, trying not to react to the heat as it burns her throat more than she expects.

Beside her, Wanda sits quietly, playing with her hands.

 

***

 

“I stole your jacket.”

“Excuse me?” Natasha looks sideways at Wanda, who isn’t meeting Natasha’s eyes but is instead staring out the window as the roads and trees fly past them. They’ve long left the farm in their wake, and the road stretches ahead of them like the blank pages of an open book.

“I stole your jacket, when we were in Sokovia. I didn’t mean to.”

“Oh.” Natasha’s fingers relax around the wheel, remembering the conversation that now seems so long ago. “It’s okay. Really. I have a ton of jackets.”

Wanda doesn’t look convinced. “You seemed upset at the time.”

Natasha fights back a bitter laugh, not wanting to come off like an unfeeling robot. “We were going to die up there, Wanda. I was upset about a lot of things. Suddenly realizing my partner gave out my clothing without telling me didn’t help.”

Wanda sighs quietly from the seat next to her. “I don’t know why he invited me here. I came because I wanted to, because I felt like it was the right thing to do. I don’t like being around the team sometimes.”

Natasha swallows down a lump in her throat. “I asked myself the same question when he brought me home for the first time,” she says after a long pause. “I had no idea why he would want introduce me to his family. We weren’t even working together that long. It’s what he does, though, if he feels like you’re worth something to him. To the world, even.”

Wanda smiles sadly. “He is a good friend,” she says with a nod. “You’re lucky.”

“I’m more than lucky,” Natasha admits, unable to stop herself from saying the words out loud. “He could’ve thrown me to the curb dozens of times, including the first time we met. For some reason, he didn’t. I’ll probably never be able to thank him for that.”

“Me, too,” Wanda says and it takes Natasha a moment to understand what she means. She hadn’t been there for the talk in Sokovia, and she hadn’t seen Wanda’s breakdown or even Pietro’s sacrifice. But she had talked about it enough with Clint and Laura afterwards to know what happened and sometimes, she forgets that she wasn’t there at all. They continue to drive in silence until the desolate dirt road gives way to a more populated highway, and eventually, a small town with a mid-sized mall.

“I made a bucket list,” Wanda says after Natasha has parked and taken off her seatbelt. When Natasha turns, she’s holding out a piece of paper that’s slightly crumpled. “Agent Barton told me to, last time we talked. He said it might help.”

Natasha purses her lips and takes the paper from the girl’s outstretched hand. There are a few things that are seemingly mundane, or at least mundane for someone who is used to living normally -- _have an All-American dinner,_ _stay up for twenty-four hours for no reason, try a food that you hate._ But there are also interesting things that Natasha supposes are Wanda’s own personal yearnings, luxuries that she wouldn’t have had in Sokovia, like _make your own ice cream, swim in a lake, watch a sunrise._

Natasha finds herself smiling as she reads down the list, before folding it back up and handing it over.

“I think,” says Natasha, “that we can take care of a few of these things here.”

 

**PART III**

On her second visit to the farm, during a detour home after an op in Copenhagen, Clint leaves Natasha alone with Laura while he takes Cooper with him to the grocery store.

“You’ll be fine,” he tells her casually before he kisses his wife and closes the door, and Natasha’s not sure what’s worse: the fact that he trusts her enough to pretend she’s as normal as the friends Natasha sees in the photos that line the fireplace mantle, or the fact that he doesn’t seem to be too concerned with the memory of her slicing throats five hours before like it was no big deal. She scuffs her foot against the dusty hardwood, twists her fingers together, and tries to remember why she’s here in the first place. She felt for Clint. She _liked_ Clint. She wouldn’t hurt Clint and his family.

She’s also not very used to things like wind chimes and cartoons and matching porcelain plates and espresso makers and owl clocks, all of which make her feel uncomfortable the more she settles herself in this house. And when Natasha is uncomfortable, Natasha acts out.

“Well.” Laura looks at Natasha and lets out a long breath. “Lunch? Dinner? Coffee?”

Natasha shakes her head mutely, still feeling out of place. Laura frowns.

“I have some Jim Beam in the cupboard,” she offers, not waiting for Natasha to respond before she walks off, reappearing with two glasses and a half-filled bottle of amber liquid. She pours generously as she sits down.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says softly. “I am giving you my word.”

“I know,” Laura says, but her voice is laced with brittleness, as if she’s not entirely sure. “Clint told me about you.”

“He…” Natasha’s brow furrows. “He tells you about what he does? His assignments?”

Laura knocks back half a glass of whiskey and swallows. “Not all of them, no. We have rules in this house, like any couple. He tells me what he knows I need to be concerned about, like when he has a mission that’s unsafe, or when there’s a period of time where I won’t be able to contact him. He tells me if he meets anyone that could be a threat. But he knows what I’ll press him about and what I won’t. It’s been so many years now, we’re used to it.”

“So I was a threat,” Natasha says, looking down at the table, unsure as to why that depresses her. Laura hesitates.

“Yes,” she admits. “At first. But when he told me he was thinking of bringing you here to meet me, he made sure to tell me you weren’t one anymore.”

“And you trusted him,” Natasha says with a sardonic laugh. Laura nods slowly, trailing her finger over the glass cup.

“I did, because I’ve trusted him for years. I wasn’t about to start second-guessing him now. Even if he has made a few mistakes over the years.”

Something about the way Laura says the word _mistakes_ makes Natasha’s blood curl. She sips her whiskey and looks around the kitchen, taking in the thin curtains and overflowing sink and finger paintings fastened to the refrigerator with oversized magnets.

“How...how did he lose his hearing?” Natasha asks tentatively. “I didn’t know, until he told me.”

Laura looks startled, and then her gaze relaxes. “A job that went sideways in Paraguay,” she says after a long pause. “When he first started at SHIELD. Rogue explosion caught him at the wrong time, and blew out most of his hearing. Thankfully, that was all he lost that day, despite all the other injuries he came home with.” She clenches her fingers more tightly around her glass. “His partner, or the guy who was supposed to be his partner, he called for help and then he bolted. Felt guilty, I guess, because he was supposed to watch Clint’s back and missed alerting him to the danger.”

Natasha blinks fast, trying not to remember the look in Clint’s eyes when he had broken his arm and then practically begged her not to leave. “He said...your son, too.”

“Yes.” Laura looks a little sad. “That’s just bad genetics, I believe. We’re hoping we can take him in for an operation so that we can fix it. If not, there’s always hearing aids.”

Natasha looks at Laura and finds herself thinking that Clint’s wife is exactly what she would have expected, the type of person who can hold her own and who seems unaffected by this kind of life, but isn’t afraid to let herself be human enough to admit she can get rattled too.

“I think I am hungry for some lunch,” Natasha decides after a pause. “If that offer is still on the table.”

Laura smiles and gets up from her chair with a nod.

“Pasta it is, then. I’ll put some water on.”

 

* * *

 

Maria Hill shows up while Wanda is taking a shower and while Natasha is in the middle of putting together a New York skyline puzzle with Lila. Natasha has to remind herself that she didn’t step into some sort of fever dream when she opens the door and sees her former boss standing on Clint’s doorstep, hair up in a ponytail, iced coffee in one hand, the usual attire of dress shirts and pant suits having been traded in for skinny jeans and a baggy University of Chicago sweatshirt.

“You…” Natasha stops, because she hasn’t seen Maria since their coffee date in SoHo. “Why are you here?”

Maria looks perturbed. “Where else would I be? On a beach with the most wanted undead man in the world? No one asked me to join the fight.”

“Lucky you,” Natasha mutters. “Seriously, I don’t understand. You live here?”

“Well, not _here,_ no. But I grew up in Chicago, and it’s where I’ve been spending some time lately while the rest of you try to destroy the world. Again.” She smiles. “And if you’d like to grab a drink and get away from Barton’s kids, we could have a night out later.”

Natasha suddenly realizes how much she’d prefer actually trying to be normal during this visit, whatever the purpose of this visit actually was. “I think I’d like that,” she says, thinking of Wanda’s bucket list. _Get drunk for no reason_. “Can Wanda come?”

Maria’s eyebrows shoot up. “Maximoff is here, too?”

Natasha nods. “Clint invited her. Without telling me.”

Maria smiles thinly. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because it’s Clint,” Natasha says, realizing that the trepidation she had felt at first seeing Maria is ebbing with the knowledge that she’s not going to go off on her for splitting from the team.

“It is. Anyway, here’s the motel I’m staying at.” She hands Natasha a card with an address scribbled on it. “It’s a few miles from town. Meet me at that bar you and Clint like to go, the one right off the highway, around nine.”

Natasha resists the urge to respond with anything resembling how she might have acted while Maria was her superior, because that was never their relationship, anyway. “You got it. Are you sure while you’re here, you don’t want some food? Maybe some tea? Laura’s running errands, but she’ll be back soon and I know she’d probably love to see you.”

Maria hesitates, looking around Natasha, her eyes softening as she takes in the overflowing living room characteristic to the farm. Natasha knows Maria’s history with Clint’s home is only second to her own, and she’s always liked that she’s never had to explain herself where Clint and his family were concerned.

“Well.” She swallows. “Maybe one sandwich. I’d love to see what you have Wanda doing that’s keeping her away from New York. Cap’s about ready to blow a gasket.”

 

***

 

Later that night, after the kids have been put to bed, Natasha and Wanda change from paint-splattered overalls to casual tops and jeans (or in Wanda’s case, borrowed clothes from Laura). Natasha grabs the keys from the kitchen table after Wanda has left the house to head to the car.

“Why can’t I come?” Clint whines as Laura tries to shove him up the stairs.

“Are you a girl?” Natasha asks pointedly. “Also, Maria specifically asked for me.”

“And then you invited Wanda!”

“Mmm.” Natasha puts her lips together, smirking “Remind me who invited Wanda here in the first place without telling me?”

Clint pouts again and Laura squeezes her husband’s arm.

“Don’t worry,” she says, catching Natasha’s eye. “I’ll feed him cookies and give him a back rub and make sure he doesn’t feel too hurt about what he’s missing with the girls.” She pauses. “And what _I’m_ missing.”

“Next team girl date, you can pick the time and place,” Natasha says with a small smile. “I promise.” She watches as Clint and Laura continue upstairs and then heads out to meet Wanda in the car, driving them down the road until they arrive the dive bar that she’s used to frequenting with Clint and sometimes Laura, though most of those times had been before Lila and Nate had entered the picture, when it was easier to find a babysitter for one child on a night Laura decided she needed to get away from her own house.

“Were you scared?” Wanda asks as they pull into the lot. “After that explosion at the airport?”

 _I was so scared that apparently I needed to drink myself through random cities._ “Yes,” says Natasha slowly, removing the key from the ignition. “I...Clint and I have a history when it comes to things like this. I thought that for the first time in awhile, things were going to end badly and that it was going to be my fault. I was scared.”

“I was, too,” Wanda admits, looking down, as if she’s afraid Natasha will judge her for her words. Natasha puts a hand on top of Wanda’s palm, shivering a little at the cold metal of her rings.

“It’s okay to be scared,” she says, feeling like she’s talking to Lila or Cooper. “I was scared when I was sent into the field for the first time, after I joined SHIELD. When Clint took me in.”

“You?” Wanda laughs. “I cannot imagine that.”

“Imagine it,” Natasha says bluntly. “I could never admit it to Clint, or anyone else.” She sighs, motioning towards the bar. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’m sure Hill got here early, and she’s going to kill us if she has to keep drinking alone.”

Natasha’s predictions are correct: Maria has already downed at least two shots and one whiskey prior to their arrival, and Natasha hides a smile when she meets the other girl’s clearly frustrated face.

“It’s about damn time,” she says when Natasha finally makes her way to the bar and slides into a seat. “You’re on the Barton clock.”

“I am not,” Natasha defends, feeling her cheeks heat up. Maria smiles.

“Yes, you are. When you’re at the farm, you’re as bad as he is, and you don’t even have your own kids.” She looks behind Natasha, nodding towards Wanda. “Hi, Maximoff.”

“Hi,” Wanda says casually, sliding onto the chair next to Natasha. “I -- what are you drinking?”

“The question is, what are _you_ drinking?” Maria asks neatly and Wanda shrugs, looking lost. Natasha realizes Wanda’s probably never seen the woman she thinks of as her supervisor and boss outside of a stoic leadership role, and as used to it as Natasha is by now -- because once she found out about Maria’s extensive wine collection she had been hard-pressed to find anything that surprised her -- she understands what it means to be thrust into an uncomfortable situation.

“Something strong,” Natasha answers when Wanda hesitates with her response. “She wants to see what it feels like to get drunk, apparently.” At Maria’s raised brow, Natasha grins. “She’s got a bucket list,” she reveals gaily. “Barton told her to make one.”

Maria smiles wider and puts her hand on Wanda’s arm. “A bucket list?”

Wanda smiles back tentatively and shoves a lock of hair behind her ear. “I...I thought it might help me feel more like I belonged.” She looks at Natasha and then Maria. “Are you sure it is okay for us all to be out here?”

“Unless Barton needs more than two hands around the farm and didn’t tell you,” Maria answers. “No one knows who anyone is fighting anymore anyway, and we’re all off the clock. So, Romanoff, Maximoff -- what’ll it be?”

Natasha orders a vodka soda and Wanda orders a Jack Daniels and coke, and Maria’s face falls slightly.

“I’m drinking with two Avengers, and I feel like I’m out with amateurs,” she mutters as the drinks appear on the counter. Natasha grits her teeth and decides that it’s no one’s place, especially Maria’s, to know about her country-wide bender that was about as far from amateur as you could get.

“So.” She swallows down most of her drink easily. “I’m serious. What have you been doing since everyone blew up the world in the biggest playground fight?”

Maria snorts. “Exactly what I told you. Lying on the beach, sipping pina coladas with the world’s _other_ most wanted man.” When Natasha raises an eyebrow skeptically, she cracks a smile. “I’m kidding. I’ve been working behind the scenes keeping tabs on the team to make sure you don’t all kill yourselves while yelling at each other, and Fury’s been helping me. But mostly, we’ve stayed out of the limelight and quite frankly, after what I’ve seen, I’m finding it’s preferable.”

“Run and hide,” Natasha murmurs, remembering Maria’s words to them after Banner’s own bender in Sokovia. Maria nods.

“In a sense.” She turns to Wanda, who has been drinking steadily. “Dare I ask if you like life on the Barton ranch better than life as an Avenger?”

Wanda laughs quietly. “I enjoy the kids,” she says, fingering the hem of her borrowed shirt. “And the quiet, and the homemade food.”

“That’s where Laura got me the first time,” Natasha says with a sigh as three tequila shots appear in front of them. Maria barks out a laugh.

“Don’t act like you’re annoyed, Romanoff -- becoming an honorary Barton was the best thing that ever happened to you.” She looks at Natasha pointedly, in a way that makes Natasha wonder if Maria knew that sometimes, Natasha _did_ wish she could love her partner in that way, if only because no one else in the world ever understood her the way Clint did. There were few secrets Maria kept hidden so well that no one would even have a chance of suspecting what they were, but Natasha’s been out with her enough times over the years to know that she has, on more than one occasion, talked up multiple women. The thought has never been something Natasha would reject, but she also knows she would never put that burden on Laura, no matter how much Laura understood the relationship between Clint and Natasha.

“I know,” Natasha says softly, thinking of bombs and fights and explosions, of drunken nights in a broken-down hotel room and long flights back to reality. She picks up her shot and downs it without waiting for her friends.

“To reinventing yourself,” she decides. Maria and Wanda glance at each other as they each take their shot.

“To reinventing, I guess,” Maria says, swallowing down a mouthful of tequila with only a hint of disgust. She orders another round of shots almost instantly and Natasha finds herself taking them eagerly, attempting to funnel all the alcohol into her system as quickly as she can. It’s not Rovinj, because she knows she’s not pushing herself that far into oblivion, but she’s not exactly thinking of stopping herself, either. And so when she feels her vision start to spin, she excuses herself, interrupting Wanda’s over-excited and tipsy tirade about Steve’s rigid training.

“Scuse me,” she mutters as she slides off the stool, roughly pushing past a large group of tattooed midwestern bikers. When she’s safely outside, she takes a deep breath of breezy summer air, letting it wind through her bones and unlock some of the tension and burgeoning claustrophobia that’s beginning to take its hold.

Then she bums a cigarette from an already-drunk eighteen-year-old who’s stumbling into the bar on the arm of her boyfriend.

“Don’t tell Barton,” Natasha says dully when the door to the bar opens and Maria walks out a few moments later.

Maria sighs loudly. “Romanoff, I’ve seen you get plucked out of the gates of hell and live to tell the tale. I’ve seen men come back from the dead and aliens fall out of the sky. I’ve seen you take down multiple agents using only your hands. I’ve seen you fight wars and I’ve seen you sing Barton’s kids to sleep while wearing a tiara. So if you think I’m going to rat you out over something like smoking a cigarette, especially when I’ve seen Barton do the same thing when he’s out on missions alone, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Natasha smiles thinly, taking another long drag. “I made a mistake.”

“And you think no one else in this group has?” Maria leans beside her, pushing her back up against the wall of the bar.

“No. But I thought...I thought we could fight on different sides of this war,” she says, trying to steady herself. “Me and Clint. I thought I was strong enough to pretend none it mattered. But it was too much like everything I once knew. And I was all fucked up. I ran away and I screwed everything up, and…”

“And you’re not responsible for anything that happened before or after that explosion,” Maria cuts in. “Do you think I blamed myself for anything that happened in Sokovia? Or in New York?”

Natasha laughs softly, releasing a cloud of smoke into the air. “The world wasn’t on your shoulders.”

“Oh, cut the crap, Romanoff. I took down three helicarriers in D.C. The world was entirely on my shoulders, and you know it.” Maria grabs for her cigarette and Natasha startles at the action. “Why the hell do you think I’ve been home in Chicago while all this bullshit has been going down?”

Natasha finds she can’t answer that, at least, not seriously. “No idea. Family reunion?”

Maria rolls her eyes. “Come on. Ask yourself why you’re here, with Barton and his family, and not with the rest of the team right now.”

“Because...because Clint told me I needed to regroup and that I needed to take a break,” she says slowly. Maria takes a drag of Natasha’s cigarette before handing it back.

“Yes, because you needed to take a break. Not because you were scared,” she says curtly.

Natasha looks up, suddenly hating the truth she can see reflected in Maria’s gaze. Part of her wants to yell _fuck you_ at her friend the way she would with Clint, and the other part of her wants to walk right back into the bar and punch out every single person who stood around, because kicking and fighting and wrapping your legs around someone’s neck felt damn good when you didn’t have another way of releasing your feelings.

She sticks the cigarette in the side of her mouth and walks up to a couple who have started to argue outside the bar. Without waiting for a beat to interrupt, she throws a punch to the man who is yelling loudly at his girlfriend and then knees him in the groin for good measure, before turning on her heel and walking back towards Maria.

“Feel better?” Maria asks mildly and Natasha shrugs.

“Not really,” Natasha admits, ignoring the cries of the man behind her and dropping the cigarette to the ground. She crushes it with the heel of her boot and walks back inside as Maria follows.

Natasha returns to Wanda, who is nursing her drink, pretending as if nothing’s wrong. So Natasha pretends she didn’t just beat up a guy for no reason other than she felt like it and Maria pretends like she didn’t just play therapist, and the jukebox continues to play until none of them can figure out the lyrics to the overplayed 80’s songs anymore, until Wanda has had another four shots, and until she’s loosens enough to feel like she can cross this particular night off her bucket list.

 

***

 

Natasha’s never been one for real hangovers but she wakes up at six in the morning the next day, wide awake and frustratingly dehydrated. After downing a few cups of water in the bathroom, she changes from her pajamas into jeans and a t-shirt with the words THE REDHEAD IS ALWAYS RIGHT emblazoned on the front -- a Christmas gift from Laura and Clint a few years ago -- and goes downstairs to make coffee, taking care to keep her gait quiet. Wanda’s asleep in the guest bedroom and Natasha had set Maria up in the sun room with extra pillows and Cooper’s old blanket, because there was something entirely endearing about seeing her former boss sleeping with a _Sesame Street_ comforter.

“Don’t say it,” she says warningly when Clint tromps down the stairs after the coffee’s started brewing, seeing the look on his face and his curious gaze.

“Say what? That you smell like alcohol and cigarettes or that you look better than you did when I picked you up in Rovinj?”

Natasha groans, sliding into the kitchen chair and putting her face in her hands. “I showered before I went to bed, so your pillows don’t smell.”

“Thank god for that,” Clint mutters. “Seriously, don’t look at me -- _you’re_ the one who came home with a posse.”

“Thanks, _dad_. For your information, I let Maria sleep here because she wasn’t going to drive home in that state.” She watches as he impatiently waits for the drip to slow enough so that he can pour some coffee from the carafe. “And Wanda’s staying here. And, in case I need to remind you, I practically _live_ here.”

Clint snorts and he rubs his eyes. “So how was last night?”

Natasha reaches for the mug of coffee Clint hands her. “Interesting. Maria should come visit here more often, I had no idea she lived this close off base.” She watches as he sits down across from her, his own coffee cup in hand. “How was _your_ night?”

Clint makes a face. “Tiring. The kid was up for hours last night, so it’s probably a good thing I didn’t go out.”

“No wonder you look like shit,” Natasha teases gently and Clint pouts.

“Thanks, _mom_. Alcoholic benders and board games aside, dare I ask how you’re doing, by the way? With this whole reinventing yourself thing?”

“I don’t know, you didn’t make me a bucket list,” Natasha responds a little playfully and Clint shrugs, taking a sip of coffee.

“Hey, maybe I’ve been spending too much time with elementary schoolers, but I thought it would help give her some purpose, you know?”

Natasha nods, tracing a finger over her cup, her throat suddenly closing up as she looks around the farm. It was a thoughtless joke, banter like they were used to, but even though Clint _hadn’t_ given her a bucket list, he had given her so much more over the years.

“I’m serious,” Clint says quietly, his voice low and gentle. “How are you doing?”

Natasha raises her cup and meets his eyes and thinks of Budapest and bombs and rooftops, secret families and bullet wounds. She swallows a mouthful of bitter coffee.

“I’m getting there.” 

 

* * *

 

Laura calls her in the middle of a solo mission, when Natasha’s hands are stained with blood, red fingerprints leaving marks on the cell phone she carries in her suit.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Do you want me to come home?” Natasha asks immediately, abandoning her mission for the time being, and Laura hesitates.

“Do you _want_ to come home?”

_Translation: I just wanted to tell you. I don’t even know where you are._

“I’ll come home,” Natasha says, hanging up the phone, wondering when she became so dedicated to life with Clint and his wife. She finishes splitting the fingers of her hostage, sends him off to SHIELD via extraction agents with a few menacing words, and then catches her own flight to the farm. Clint meets her on the porch steps, shirt open and bare feet pressed against the wood.

“Nothing like coming home, huh?”

Natasha looks around as she climbs the steps, trying to remember the first time she came here, the first time Clint sprung this domestic life on her like it was no big deal, except it was the biggest deal she could have imagined at the time. She then tries to forget that less than five hours ago, she was washing blood off her hands and cutting off limbs, and now she’s dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans, accepting a beer while children’s laughter assaults her eardrums.

“I’ll let you know after I have a nap.” She resists the urge to kiss him on the cheek the way she would if they weren’t at the farm, but Clint opens his arms and hugs her tightly, rocking back and forth and stroking her hair.

“Wasn’t sure if you could handle those AIM goons on your own,” he says when he pulls away. She eyes him warily.

“Laura’s call better not have been some smokescreen to get me home faster.”

Clint laughs loudly, shaking his head. “No, no, don’t worry. We even peed on a stick to make sure. She’s definitely pregnant. Good timing, too. I didn’t want Coop to be too old, you know? I think five years is a respectable age difference.”

Natasha nods as Laura exits the house, the screen door slamming behind her.

“I thought I heard someone arrive,” she says with a grin, pressing a kiss to Clint’s cheek. “Did you make it out of that mission okay?”

“I only broke a few fingers,” Natasha admits with a small grin, because at some point, it’s become easier to talk about her job with Laura, especially since Clint’s wife was already used to it. “And none of my own. How are you feeling?”

“Ask me that in a few weeks when the morning sickness kicks in,” Laura says, hugging Natasha warmly and handing her a beer. “And after lunch, where you drink for me. You’re hungry, right?”

Natasha sighs, taking a sip of beer. “You’re _never_ going to stop offering me homemade food, are you?”

Laura smiles, pushing Natasha gently inside as Clint follows.

“Probably not. But how do you think I got _him_ to stay, once upon a time?”

 

* * *

 

Sometime in the afternoon, after Natasha has driven Maria back to her car that she’s left parked at the bar and then returned to find Wanda engrossed in a board game with Lila, Clint finds Natasha sitting outside on the porch with a book.

“Hey,” he says quietly, sidling up behind her and running his fingers through her hair in greeting. “Interesting read?”

Natasha gives a half-smile, looking up. “It’s about fifteen years below my reading level,” she jokes, closing the cover of _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_. “Actually, it’s not, really. It’s pretty good. Cooper was adamant that I read it, so we could talk about the characters together.”

“There are worse things you could be forced into doing,” Clint says with a nod, sliding into the wicker chair next to her. He leans his head back and sighs loudly. “Wanda will probably head back to New York soon. Maybe next week.”

Natasha swallows. “Okay.” She doesn’t really know what else to say, because she knows if Clint found her out here alone, it was because he wanted to ask her more than just what she was reading.

“Natasha.”

She turns, finding his eyes, which look sad and tired.

“What were you really scared of, when you ran off after that explosion?”

Natasha’s swallows down a lump in her throat. She knows if she says nothing, Clint will call her out on it, because they have a history and because _nothing_ doesn’t make someone flee off the grid and drink themselves into oblivion and ignore everyone, including the person they trust more than anything in the world.

But fear does. He knows that. _She_ knows that.

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

Clint snorts out a laugh. “I’m tempted to ask which time -- the roof in Vienna or the bomb in Budapest?”

Natasha glares and Clint raises an eyebrow, nodding, slouching back in the chair.

“Yes,” he says. “Of course I remember.”

“Do you…” She pauses, attempting to collect herself, and stares out over the quiet landscape of the farm, the large stretches of grass and faint sounds of trucks and cars making their way along the dirt road in the distance. “Do you remember why I let you go? The first time?”

Clint doesn’t answer right away and looks down at his hands. “Actually, I don’t, because you never told me. You just told me to run. I assumed it’s because you liked me.”

His cheeky response is belied by the seriousness in his eyes and Natasha stretches out against the chair, listening to Lila loudly explain the rules of a Barbie video game to Wanda.

“I was scared,” she says quietly. “I was scared of myself and at what I felt for you when you told me you had a family. I was scared at what I felt for you when you told me to kill you.”

“Did you feel that way when the explosion happened at the airport?” Clint asks just as quietly. “Scared of yourself?”

Natasha nods slowly. “Yes,” she admits after a long pause. “Being scared is...it’s not who I am. Or maybe it is. Maybe I haven’t ever let myself realize that I’ve always been scared.”

“Of what?” Clint asks curiously, putting a hand on her knee. “Losing yourself?”

 _No, you fucking idiot_ , Natasha thinks impatiently, the sound of cicadas ringing in her ears. “Losing you,” she says softly, hearing his sharp intake of breath.

“Nat…”

“What if, one day, it’s not just spy stuff?” She thinks of fighting him at the airport, of kicking and killing, of bombs and of the life she made for herself without even trying. Clint leans over and kisses her on the cheek, and at his touch, Natasha feels her own heartbeat steady.

“Then I guess one day, it’s not just spy stuff.”

 

***

 

“I think I want to take the kids down to the beach this year for fireworks,” Laura says a few days later and two days before Wanda is scheduled to head back to New York.

“Yeah,” Clint says, looking up from where he’s doing his weekly budget, bills spread out messily across the table. “Sounds good. Invite Maria, maybe? I think she’s still in Chicago.”

“I will,” Laura says with a nod, making a note on her phone. “I think it’ll be good for Wanda to have this experience before she leaves the farm.”

“You think Wanda’s really into cotton candy and fourth of July fireworks?” Clint asks dubiously, making a note on his papers. Laura crosses her arms.

“Find me _one_ person who isn’t into fireworks, Clint. And don’t say dogs, they don’t count.” Nathaniel starts to wail in the aftermath of her words, and Laura walks out of the room to attend to her crying son while Clint rubs his temples.

“How’s retirement treating you?” Natasha deadpans when she finds him outside by the fire pit a few hours later, after Laura has left to pick up groceries for dinner, bringing Wanda along to get her out of the house.

“Not too bad,” Clint muses, relaxing in his chair and putting his feet up on one of the concrete blocks lining the pit. “Get to do stuff like this, as long as I don’t get interrupted.” He waves towards the baby monitor sitting by his side.

“Stuff like what? Sit around an empty fire pit?” Natasha asks with an eyebrow raise, taking a seat across from him. Clint rolls his eyes.

“No. Be with my family. Not worry about if the world is going to end.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of mini Dove candies. “Chocolate?”

Natasha can’t help but smile as she takes a few from his outstretched hand, peeling back the gold and white wrapper carefully before popping one into her mouth and chewing thoughtfully on the dark molasses.

“Where did you get Valentine’s Day chocolate in July?” Natasha asks curiously after she swallows. “Or are you poisoning me?”

“Ha.” Clint smiles, reaching up and rubbing his ear, what Natasha now recognizes as his subtle way of adjusting his aids. “No. Laura likes to go on a shopping spree after the big holidays are over and snatch up all the candy deals so she has stuff for whenever the kids want it or when we need it for parties. Really, all they care about is the candy. They don’t even notice if it’s shaped like a heart or a bunny.”

“Smart,” Natasha remarks, flattening out her wrapper and catching the inscription written inside.

_Escape for a moment. Love, Dove._

Natasha barks out a laugh she can’t control and Clint looks at her curiously.

“What’s so funny?”

“My fortune.” She passes the wrapper over and Clint’s lips fold into a small smile. He puts it in his pocket and winks.

“Escape for a moment, then, I guess,” he says, reaching for her hand.

This time, alone but feeling a little more sure of herself, Natasha lets her fingers curl around his own.

 

* * *

 

Natasha has few things in life that she considers real, and most of those things can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The things that aren’t already red hair or a place of birth or a beauty mark on the inside of her right wrist are all memories and moments and anniversaries that have come with Clint making her a part of his life and family.

“I cannot believe you’re doing this to me,” Natasha says when they get far enough away from the farm. “I have half a mind to mace you.”

“Do you even _have_ mace?” Clint asks mildly. “Seriously, Romanoff. Relax. What’s the big deal? Are you afraid you’re going to light yourself on fire?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to light _you_ on fire,” she grumbles and Clint laughs.

“After trying to kill me for years with bombs, I think that would be an appropriate way to go out.”

Natasha remains silent as Clint drives, sticking her feet up on the dash, trying to ignore the uneasiness rolling around in her stomach. She hates that she feels uneasy at all, given that she’s so comfortable now with Clint and his home life, a far cry from the annoyance and trepidation she’d experienced when he brought her to the farm unexpectedly all those years ago. Clint hums under his breath, songs Natasha recognizes as tunes from kiddie shows. She assumes he’s spent too much time lately with programs like _Sesame Street_ and closes her eyes as the car travels down the rocky dirt path that she instinctively knows leads to one of the few beaches in the area.

“I hate you,” she grumbles again as the car rolls to a stop and Clint sighs loudly.

“For fuck’s sake, Nat. Just try to enjoy this, okay? For me?”

She cracks open one eye and attempts to throw him her best _fuck you_ glare, getting out of the car while Clint reaches around and into the backseat to grab a bag of supplies. Natasha doesn’t wait before she takes off towards the beach, ducking under the signs warning about the dangers of trespassing and other bad ideas. She stops short when she gets to the sand.

She’d expected to find herself covered in streamers or other showers of affection that she hadn’t wanted, and she’d expected a big set-up with tables and chairs and maybe even a cake, things that she didn’t even remotely want. Instead of any of that, there’s just Laura and Cooper and Lila sitting on a blanket, roasting marshmallows while Laura stokes the small bonfire she’s started.

Clint appears next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Told you that you wouldn’t need to mace me, right? No cake. No surprises. And no one can really get mad about roasting marshmallows.” He loops something cold and metal around her neck. “Happy birthday, Tasha.”

Natasha puts her hand over the necklace Clint’s fastened around her throat, her fingers settling on the small silver arrow. She smiles, feeling warm as she watches the flames of the bonfire, and tries not to think about how she never thought standing in front of flames like this could make her feel comfortable and content.

“Thanks, Barton.”

 

* * *

 

Natasha has been around the Barton farm for years at this point, but she always forgets how much of a production it is to take the entire family somewhere, an adventure now made even more stressful with the addition of a new baby.

Cooper holds tight to Clint’s hand and Natasha carries Lila while Laura brings up the rear with Nate, a few blankets, and a bag of food. They settle on a stretch of sand not too far from the water but far enough away from other families. Maria and Wanda, who have gone ahead and secured the spot ahead of the crowds, are already lounging on their backs and clinking their wine glasses together.

“I remember when you first came here for your birthday,” Laura says, bouncing Nate on her knee. “Feels like yesterday, doesn’t it?”

Natasha touches the arrow sitting at her throat. “A little bit,” she admits, wondering how everything can feel so foreign and familiar all at once. Laura helps settle the kids while Natasha greets Maria and secures a wine glass of her own. She sips carefully, trying not to down the whole drink at once, and finds herself perching on the edge of the blanket, staring off into the distance.

“So, here’s the deal,” Clint says when he sits down next to her, more on the sand than on the blanket. He sticks his legs out, bare feet resting in the grains made warm from the afternoon sun. “You can stay here for as long as you want, and we can go back when we’re ready.”

“We?” Natasha asks quietly.

Clint nods. “Yes. We. We can get out of retirement, go back to our friends and face the war, or whatever this is. But you know I’ll be by your side, Nat. No matter what.”

Natasha looks over at Wanda and Maria and Laura, who are toasting each other again in the glow of the setting sun, while Nathaniel sleeps in his stroller and Cooper and Lila suck on patriotic-colored popsicles, eager eyes trained to the darkening sky.

Clint had his family. Wanda had her bucket list. Maria had a new focus away from superheroes. She had tried time and time again to remake herself, running away or trying to change things, because that’s the way she had always dealt with things, war or no war. Because she had been afraid to be scared.

And, Natasha realizes with a start, maybe that’s been the problem all along. Maybe it was _okay_ to be scared. Maybe choosing sides didn’t matter in the end, as long as you had something to hold onto that was _tangible_. She leans into Clint, meeting Laura’s eyes with a small smile.

“And then what happens?”

“What happens,” Clint says, wrapping an arm around her, “is that we stand the way we always have. Together.”

Natasha closes her eyes, feeling safe and secure and vulnerable in his hold. “The world didn’t end, you know.”

She feels Clint nod against her and knows she doesn’t have to ask if he’s thinking of the same thing she is. She doesn’t have to wonder if he’s thinking of bombs in Budapest or explosions in Sokovia or twilight filled nights on a rooftop in Vienna or drunken benders in the middle of Europe, the start of bringing her home.

“No. It didn’t.”

Fireworks start to erupt violently in the sky above them, causing Cooper and Lila to scream excitedly, bathing Clint’s face in multicolored light.

And for the first time in years, with Clint standing by her side and home scattered all around her in different ways, the fire that explodes in front of her doesn’t burn her soul.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://isjustprogress.tumblr.com) for fic and more.


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